POMPEII 

AS    AN    ART    CITY 


BY 

E.    v.    MAYER 


New  York  : 
FREDERICK    A.    STOKES    COMPANY 


Printed  in   Great  Britain. 


Jr.-' 


All  rights  reserved. 


CONTENTS 

Introductory — Origins  of  Pompeian  Culture — Influence 
of  Hellenism — Peculiar  character  of  Pompeian  Art—- 
The Pompeian  House — Evolution  of  its  internal  arrange- 
ment— Roman  and  Greek  family  life — Their  effect  on 
the  formation  of  character  —  The  Pompeian  art  of 
mural  decoration — The  place  of  Man  in  Hellenic  and 
Hellenistic  Art — Pompeian  Painting — Influence  of  the 
Dionysian  and  heroic  legends,  and  of  Greek  history,  on 
Pompeian  Art — Pompeian  Sculpture — Portrait  busts — 
The  Artemis — The  "Dancing  Faun — The  Narcissus — The 
Pompeian  art  of  common  things — Joyousness  the  key- 
note of  Pompeian  Art — Centres  of  Pompeian  life — 
Pompeian  Architecture — The  Thermae — The  Bath  as  a 
factor  in  social  life — Street  of  Tombs— Conclusion. 


45677- 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

NARCISSUS  (Photogravure)        .         .  .         ,  Frontispiece 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  FORUM fad»gp.  4 

VESTIBULE,  HOUSE  OF  PANSA        ,         ...         .      » 
ATRIUM,  HOUSE  OF  CORNELIUS  RUFUS    .         ,        .         .      „         12 

PlFISTYLl,  HOUSE  OF  THE  VETT1I  .  .  .  .        „  1 6 

RECONSTRUCTION,  HOUSE  OF  TRAGIC  POET  .  .  .  „  20 
MURAL  DECORATION  IN  STUCCO-RELIEF  AND  FRESCO  .  „  28 
CENTAUR  CHIRON  INSTRUCTING  ACHILLES  .  .  .  „  36 

ZEUS  AND  HERA  .         • ,,44 

ARES  AND  APHRODITE  ......*      „         52 

DANCING  FAUN    .         .         •         •         ....,,         60 

TEMPLE  OF  AFOLLO ,,64 

DRESSING-ROOM,  STABIAN  THERMAE       ....,,         68 

PALISTRA,  STABIAN  THERMAE ,,72 

STREET  or  TOMBS        ........        76 


INTRODUCTORY 


BESIDE  the  Java-strewn  shores  of  the  Bay  of 
Naples  there  lies  a  shattered  city — a-  laby- 
rinth of  ruins,  the  legacy  of  a  Past  from 
which    twice  ten  centuries   divide    us,  yet 
fraught  with  interest  and   significance  to  the  age 
in  which  we  live,  and  with  potential  influence  upon 
its  joys  and  sorrows. 

Pompeii,  the  finest  antique  treasure-trove  of 
modern  times,  possesses  for  ourselves  a  living  value 
that  is  unique,  unparalleled  ;  and  the  secret  of  this 
importance  lies  in  her  Art. 

But  if  this  be  true  of  Pompeii,  why  is  it  not  so 
in  equal  measure  of  many  other  Art  Cities  of  the 
past  whose  treasures  also  have  descended  to  us  ? 

The  Philistine  in  Art  may  be  indifferent  to  the 
character  of  the  curios  adorning  his  drawing  room — a 
Tanagra  figure  may  jostle  a  statuette  of  Buddha,  or 
a  cup  from  Mycenae  form  the  incongruous  pen- 
dant to  a  Louis  XV.  snuff-box  ;  but  those  to  whom 
Art  conveys  the  pulsations  of  humanity's  deepest 
heart-throbs  are  speedily  brought,  into  such  intense 
personal  sympathy  with  her  works  that  they  cannot 


AS  AN  ART  CITY 


endure  the  presence  of  objects  that  discourse  to 
them  in  foreign  tongues  of  alien  gods.  Greatly  as 
the  mature  and  refined  art  of  Japan  may  fascinate 
and  stimulate  us,  we  must  nevertheless  recognise 
that  our  own  life  and  our  own  art  is  rooted  in  that 
Caucasian  civilisation  whose  birthplace  was  the 
Mediterranean  shore.  Between  ourselves  and  a  true 
conception  of  the  genius  of  Mongolian  life  there 
is  a  great  gulf  fixed  ;  and  our  guiding  principle 
must  be  found  in  the  matured  culture  of  nations 
bordering  the  great  inland  sea.  Such  an  example 
once  existed  in  Pompeii. 


POMPEII 

AS  AN 
ART  CITY 


NOT    favoured   Hellas,  with    its   alternating 
climatic  conditions  of  invigorating  severity 
and  glowing,  intoxicating  heat,  but  the  re- 
laxing, enervating  Campania  saw  the  rise 
of  Pompeii.     Its  original  inhabitants  were  no  proud, 
hardy  Dorians  or  versatile  lonians,  but  Oscans  and 
Etruscans,  agricultural  Latins,  whose  servile  spirit 
found    its   satisfaction    in    sinister    religious    rites. 
The  Golden  Age  of  Hellas,  from  the  tenth  to  the 
fifth  century  B.C.,  when,  almost  unaffected  by  the 
archaic    civilisation    of  the  Semitic    and  Egyptian 
races,  she  was  developing  her  own  culture  in  undis- 
turbed isolation,  was  already  long  past  ere  Pompeii 
reached  her  zenith. 

Pompeii,  sharing  the  rate  of  all  Samnite  cities, 
had  been  for  two  centuries  incorporated  in  the 
growing  world-empire  of  the  Romans,  when  Sulla's 
mercenaries,  hardened  in  the  wars  of  Spain  and 
Asia,  razed  its  towers  and  walls  and  converted  it 
into  an  open  town — a  town  which  subsequently 
acquired  Roman  civic  rights,  and  became  a  popular 
summer  resort  of  wealthy  Senators. 


-A'S  'AN  ART  CITY 


But  what,  after  all,  was  this  triumphant  Roman- 
ising influence  but  the  bastard  product  of  ancient 
Latin  boorishness  and  Etruscan,  Egyptian,  Asiatic, 
and,  above  all,  Hellenic  civilisation. 

Partly  the  product  of  Greek  and  Roman  in- 
fluences, and  also  to  some  extent  indigenous,  the 
growth  of  Pompeian  culture  is  only  partially  Hel- 
lenistic. But  the  value  of  Pompeii  to  ourselves  lies 
not  in  that  which  she  either  never  spontaneously 
produced  or  had  long  since  lost,  but  in  that  which 
she  assimilated  of  Greek  culture  ;  or,  rather,  in  that 
with  which  Greek  culture  was  able  to  endow  her. 
Pompeii  supplies  a  test  of  the  intrinsic  living  value 
of  Hellenism.  The  conditions  of  Pompeii  were 
essentially  unfavourable  to  culture  —  a  languid  cli- 
mate, the  hybrid  population  of  a  sea-port  town, 
and  the  near  example  of  the  capital,  Rome,  And 
yet  Hellenism  was  able  to  stimulate  this  its  offshoot 
to  a  high  pitch  of  cultured  refinement  —  a  proof  of 
its  own  intense  vitality,  of  its  own  peculiar  energy. 

Granted  that  every  revival  of  that  culture  can  be 
but  a  picture  and  artificial  view  in  perspective  of 
the  past,  still  the  ideality  of  a  condition  of  life  finds 
its  measure  in  the  lasting  progressive  force  of  its  idea. 
If  we  think  out  the  aims  of  Hellenic  life  to  their 
conclusion,  if  we  set  forth  in  detail  the  aspirations 
of  genuine  Hellenism,  we  find  that  everywhere  the 
directing  lines  converge  into  a  common  focus  of 
animated  sensuous  beauty.  With  us,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  diverge  in  all  directions.  Our  culture 
is  therefore  unideal,  because  its  ideals  and  its  aims 
are  so  very  different.  With  us  every  object  attained 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY  5 

implies  an  open  breach  with  all  other  aims,  and  it 
is  only  thanks  to  the  conflict  that  the  life  of  our 
world  is  prolonged. 

Thus,  in  an  ethical  sense,  the  small  Campanian 
provincial  town,  in  all  its  ruin  and  incompleteness, 
is  a  picture  from  the  Hellenic  world,  and  an  anti- 
type of  our  own  age. 

Pompeii  possesses  all  the  greater  significance  for 
us  inasmuch  as  it  was  one  of  the  most  unimportant 
transplantations  of  Greek  culture — indeed,  it  was 
not  even  Hellenistic,  but  merely  Hellenised — not 
a  Hellenic  city  in  a  foreign  land,  but  only  a  Hellen- 
ised barbarian  town.  Leaving  out  5F  the  question 
the  world-renowned  Alexandria,  whose  existence 
was  a  continual  process  of  development,  it  was  quite 
otherwise  that  the  refinement  of  Hellenic  life 
flourished  in  Capua  or  Baiae.  Had  Baiae  instead 
of  Pompeii  been  preserved  to  us,  we  should  doubt- 
less have  possessed  a  greater  abundance  of  the  best 
productions  of  Hellenic  art  ;  we  should  have  beheld 
a  second,  and  still  more  luxurious,  Palatine  covered 
with  imperial  palaces  ;  we  should  have  seen  all  the 
arrogant  splendour  of  the  worthy  Trimalchio  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  should  never  have  known 
what  was  the  influence  of  Hellenism  on  the  life  of 
the  masses.  Not  even  Herculaneum — which  yet 
reserves  in  its  volcanic  sepulchre  many  an  enchanting 
surprise  for  future  generations — not  even  wealthy 
Herculaneum  itself,  .for  all  its  Hellenic  origin,  is  of 
more  vital  importance  to  our  knowledge  of  antique 
life  than  Pompeii. 


6  POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

Pompeii  was  a  provincial  city  of  about  30,000 
inhabitants — a  busy  town,  but  of  very  moderate 
opulence.  The  sea-breezes  for  which  it  was 
indebted  to  its  situation  on  the  coast,  it  is  true, 
allured  Cicero  to  the  acquisition  of  a  villa  there  ; 
but  in  Pompeii  houses  of  any  pretension  to  grandeur 
were  few  and  far  between.  The  city  possessed 
two  theatres  and  an  amphitheatre,  which,  however, 
paitially  depended  on  the  support  of  the  neighbour- 
ing inland  towns,  whose  sea-port  Pompeii  was. 
Existence  may  have  been  easy  and  comfortable  in 
Pompeii,  but  luxury  found  no  place  there.  Its 
worthy  citizens  had  no  money  to  spare  for  costly 
works  of  art,  but  Art  as  a  whole  was  dear  to  their 
hearts. 

The  art  of  Pompeii  is  distinctly  an  art  of  tri- 
vialities, not  the  colossal  art  that  twined  the  frieze 
of  Phidias,  a  garland  of  immortality,  around  the 
Parthenon,  or  raised  the  Olympic  altar  at  Pergamos. 
It  was  not  in  mighty  works  such  as  those  that  stood 
in  the  sanctuaries  of  Greece,  a  prey  beyond  the 
reach  of  any  but  the  greatest  robbers,  but  in  the 
smaller  appliances  of  domestic  life,  articles  within 
the  reach  of  all,  that  Pompeii  displayed  the  Hellen- 
istic distinction  of  her  characteristic  art.  She  did 
not  aspire  to  the  possession  of  original  creations  by 
artists  of  renown,  but  entrusted  her  modest  com- 
missions to  minor  craftsmen  capable  of  fashioning, 
at  a  moderate  recompense,  artistic  objects  calculated 
to  be  a  continual  joy  to  their  owners. 

Thus  Pompeii  continued  to  create  in  the  spirit 
of  the  great  works  with  which  Rome  was  adorning 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY  7 

herself;  but  this  was  only  possible  inasmuch  as 
her  own  exuberant  impulses  carried  her  more  than 
half-way  upon  the  road  along  which  her  great 
model  beckoned  her.  Every  individual  experienced 
the  desire  to  see  his  own  sentiment  crystallised  into 
palpable  shape,  and  it  lay  within  the  means  of 
many  minor  artists  to  embody  these  emotions  in 
plastic  form.  Many  of  these  were  only  master- 
craftsmen  ;  but  in  Greece,  as  in  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  creative  artist  remained  nominally 
a  tradesman.  Perhaps  it  is  to  that  very  fact  that 
the  vigorous  sense  of  Nature  which  distinguishes 
those  artists  is  due,  as  well  as  the  loftiness  of  such 
artistic  craftsmanship.  Since  Art  did  not  disdain 
to  take  her  stand  upon  the  fast  foundation  of  trade, 
the  latter  was  less  apt  to  lose  touch  with  Art. 

A  glimpse  of  an  artistic  industry  of  matured 
refinement,  then,  is  what  Pompeii  offers  us.  In 
the  direct  pleasure  with  which  those  miniature 
works  of  art  inspired,  and  still  inspire,  the  beholder 
the  spirit  of  Hellenism  declares  itself ;  in  this  un- 
pretentious art  of  everyday  life  lies  a  weightier 
testimony  to  that  age  and  its  worth  than  in  many 
a  lofty  creation.  The  art  of  Pompeii  is  not  an  art 
of  great  achievements,  commissioned  by  wealthy 
buyers,  possibly  merely  desirous  of  the  notoriety 
conferred  by  their  outlay,  but  of  patrons  of  modest 
station  and  limited  means.  Its  productions  were 
not  the  works  of  individuals  whose  personalities 
stand  out  far  above  period,  environment,  or  race, 
but  of  far  humbler  artists,  in  whom,  nevertheless,  the 
spirit  of  their  blood,  their  world,  and  their  times  is 


8  POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

manifest.  The  fact  that  these  humble  and  even 
insignificant  workers  universally  aspired  towards 
Art,  and  attained  it,  is  the  one  essential  feature  that 
commands  our  admiration  and  invites  our  imita- 
tion. 

The  learned  collector  Athenaeus  has  bequeathed 
to  us  innumerable  descriptions  of  the  usages  and 
conditions  of  life  prevalent  among  the  ancients ; 
but  where  the  dead  text  confronts  us  with  many 
an  obscure  enigma,  the  ocular  evidence  that 
Pompeii  provides  assists  us  to  a  living  comprehen- 
sion. To  the  receptive  mind,  the  character  of 
Hellenic  life,  and  of  that  of  its  immediate  offshoots, 
is  no  longer  strange.  Its  profound  source,  the 
Olympian  theory  of  the  universe,  has  been  pre- 
served to  us  in  the  works  of  the  Greek  poets  ;  it 
was  reserved  for  Pompeii  to  afford  us  tangible 
evidence  of  its  direct  operation. 

The  mature  Hellenistic  art-industry  whereon 
the  value  of  Pompeii  is  based  continually  diverts 
our  attention  from  fascinating  details,  to  fix  it  upon 
the  entire  scheme  of  the  Pompeian  life  to  which  it 
bears  witness.  This  Pompeian  life  is  concentrated 
into  one  focus,  small  but  absolutely  perfect,  in  the 
Pompeian  home.  Pompeii,  the  City,  as  our  fancy 
restores  it,  overflows  with  charms.  Its  position 
on  a  rising  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  girdled  and 
yet  not  dominated  by  the  mountains  around  ;  its 
picturesque  gates,  approached  through  avenues  of 
imposing  tombs  ;  its  stately  colonnaded  squares  ; 
its  fine  public  buildings — temples,  theatres,  baths, 
courts  of  justice ;  in  its  streets  the  unconstrained 


Photo.  Sotnmer 


VESTIBULE  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  PANSA 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY  9 

life  of  the  South — on  all  sides  the  receptive  mind 
is  subject  to  the  stimulus  of  Nature's  own  art. 

But  all  these  attractions  pale  before  the  grace  of 
the  Pompeian  House.  A  penetrating  aroma  of  the 
life  of  yore  yet  clings  to  its  ruined  walls  and  faded 
pictures  ;  for  the  house  in  those  days  was  of  higher 
importance  to  the  social  life  of  the  community 
than  in  our  own  age.  The  animated  and  more 
comprehensive  social  life  which  was  the  outcome 
of  Pompeian  culture  did  not  stifle  domesticity  ; 
rather  does  the  latter  supply  the  principle  of  the 
former,  but  in  a  more  concentrated  and  therefore 
more  fruitful  form.  Collectivity  can  claim  no 
prerogative  when  its  pressure  is  exerted  from 
without  and  above  upon  the  individual.  It  is  only 
when  it  develops  from  minute  and  spontaneous 
formations,  expanding  upwards  from  below  and 
from  within,  that  social  life  can  be  welded  from  a 
many-headed  monstrosity  into  richly  proportioned 
and  natural  homogeneity.  Thus  alone  can  it 
afford  the  individual  an  object  commensurate  with 
his  existence — a  complete  utilisation  of  his  glowing 
energies.  The  absorption  of  smaller  States  by 
larger,  if  carried  too  far,  paralyses  all  independence, 
and  is  intolerant  of  all  combination,  unless  for 
economic  purposes.  Boundless  world-empires,  by 
the  irresistible  weight  of  their  component  masses, 
have  deprived  the  direct  creations  of  mankind  of  all 
value,  strength,  and  cohesion.  Yet  primaeval 
civilisation  grew  organically  out  of  primitive  life  ; 
the  State  was  little  more  than  a  municipal  area  ; 
want  of  room  set  a  natural  limit  to  the  preponder- 


10          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

ance  of  the  community,  and  the  social  constituents, 
Personality,  Family,  Friendship,  remained  alive  and 
independent. 

It  is  the  social  condition  that  the  ancient  world 
embodied  in  its  conception  of  the  House  ;  and  it  is 
this  ancient  world  that  we  learn  to  know  in  the 
Pompeian  dwelling,  whose  plan  is  a  plan  of  life. 

The  House,  in  its  Pompeian  form,  is  an  organic 
building.  A  clear  fundamental  idea  here  finds 
architectural  expression,  and  creates  a  genuine 
style — logical,  characteristic,  and  therefore  impor- 
tant. It  is  the  jftrium  that  groups  all  the  other 
apartments  around  it,  and  forms  the  theoretical, 
though  not  the  actual,  centre  of  the  whole.  The 
dark,  unpartitioned  interior  of  the  ancient  peasant's 
hut  has  now  developed  greater  freedom  and  com- 
fort. No  longer  bed-room,  dining-room,  and  living- 
room  in  one,  the  atrium  still  remains  sentimentally 
and  ethically  the  principal  apartment,  with  its  Al<z^ 
or  wings,  in  which  the  sacred  ancestral  portraits 
and  the  modest  family  treasure,  in  a  bronze  chest, 
are  preserved. 

The  next  improvement  may  have  been  the  pro- 
vision of  a  more  convenient  outlet  for  the  smoke 
from  the  hearth  than  that  afforded  by  the  door, 
and  then  the  hole  in  the  ceiling  may  have  been 
covered  by  a  four-cornered  roof,  as  a  protection 
against  the  rain  ;  but  these  so-called  "  turtle- 
backed  "  roofs  subsequently  disappeared.  The 
space  now  left  open  to  the  sky  whereby  the 
Impluvtum  was  fed  transformed  the  atrium  into  a 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          n 

pleasant,  well-lighted  court — later  on  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  the  gallery  of  the  upper  storey,  supported 
on  stout  pillars.  Below  in  the  Compluviumy  too,  a 
small  garden  awaited  the  fortune  of  grateful 
showers. 

Thus  the  clearance  effected  in  the  interior  of  the 
atrium  by  the  addition  of  fresh  apartments  could 
but  tend  to  elevate  its  character.  The  living  and 
dining  room  was  now  built  out  from  the  atrium, 
forming  an  extension  or  recess,  open  to  that 
apartment  in  front,  and  closed  in  on  the  other  three 
sides.  Bed-rooms  were  constructed  to  the  right 
and  left  of  the  atrium,  and  as  these  multiplied 
the  doorway  became  elongated  into  an  entrance- 
passage,  or  Vestibulum. 

Evolution  continued,  and  the  garden  behind  the 
house  was  now  absorbed  into  the  house  itself.  The 
living-room,  become  the  Tablinumy  now  opened  into 
the  garden-court,  with  its  columns,  and  this  colon- 
nade, the  Peristyliori)  was  girdled  by  a  ring  of  new- 
fashioned  erections  for  time-honoured  purposes — 
dining-room  and  kitchen,  bed-chamber  and  servants' 
rooms  ;  while  in  the  extreme  rear  of  the  house 
a  small  garden,  or  Xystus,  supplied  the  ever-present 
need  of  fresh  vegetables. 

The  life  of  the  Pompeian  house  was  centred  in 
the  peristyle  and,  above  all,  the  atrium.  For  the 
very  reason  that  such  open  spaces  invited  air,  light, 
and  sunshine,  the  house  must  have  been  peculiarly 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  its  inmates,  and  must  have 
stimulated  the  geniality  of  family  life.  All  the 
apartments  gave  on  to  the  atrium  and  peristyle. 


12          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

Here  all  members  of  the  household  met  ;  here  they 
lived,  not  merely  in  propinquity,  but  in  constant 
intercourse  with  one  another.  The  arrangement 
of  the  house  educated  its  inmates  to  a  real  com- 
munity of  existence,  aud  welded  their  units  into  a 
whole — a  proof  that  architecture  fashions  not  only 
buildings,  but  also  fresh  forms  of  life,  provided  that 
it  applies  itself  to  actual  sentiments  and  necessities, 
and  is  guided  by  them.  Thus  "style"  may  be- 
come not  merely  an  attribute  but  an  instrument 
of  civilisation  ;  not  only  the  product  of  human 
industry,  but  also  the  originator  of  human  develop- 
ment. 

The  Pompeian  house  was  gradually  built  up 
from  within  ;  there  was  therefore  no  reason  for 
taking  outside  conditions  into  account.  It  was 
quite  possible  to  provide  barriers  against  intrusion 
from  the  outer  world  without  resorting  to  the 
rigours  of  monastic  seclusion.  The  entire  archi- 
tectural scheme  of  the  Pompeian  house  being 
centred  in  its  interior,  its  external  appearance  was 
comparatively  insignificant.  An  unbroken  stretch 
of  wall  girdled  the  complexity  of  the  interior.  Even 
windows  were  superfluous,  since  the  various  apart- 
ments received  light  and  air  from  the  inner  courts. 
Therefore  even  on  the  ground  floor  we  find  hardly 
a  window  worth  mentioning  that  commands  the 
street ;  though  it  is  true  that  there  were  windows 
in  the  interior  of  the  house,  converting  the  rooms 
into  half-open  chambers.  The  upper  storey — in 
the  rare  cases  in  which  it  has  been  preserved — 
displays,  on  the  other  hand,  small  external  windows. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          13 

Indeed,  Pompeian  landscape  paintings  frequently 
depict  buildings  with  full-sized  and  even  imposing 
windows.  But  these  are  country  houses  in  open 
situations  ;  the  Pompeian  dwelling  was  essentially 
a  town  house. 

Thus  it  was  not  because  the  pleasure  of  an  out- 
look upon  the  world  in  general  was  unknown  to 
the  men  of  those  days  that  windows,  in  our  sense 
of  the  word,  were  wanting  in  the  Pompeian  house ; 
but  because  its  owners  objected  to  any  neighbourly 
survey — whether  friendly  or  otnerwise — of  their 
domestic  privacy.  Here  the  fundamental  idea  is 
the  supremacy  of  the  personal  life,  and  of  its 
natural  conditions  ;  whence  proceeds  the  endeavour 
to  avoid  unauthorised  surveillance  and  a  possibly 
injurious  publicity,  and  to  invest  domestic  life  to 
the  utmost  extent  with  the  privacy  of  the  interior. 
This  desire  finds  architectural  expression  in  the 
internal  arrangement  of  the  Pompeian  house,  by 
which  alone  the  relatively  forbidding  character  or 
the  exterior  is  rendered  possible.  This  system, 
unnecessary  in  scattered  rural  settlements,  became 
a  social  necessity,  and  consequently  a  fixed  style,  in 
the  serried  dwellings  of  the  cities. 

"  My  house  is  my  castle  "  was  true  in  a  deeper 
sense  of  the  Hellene  than  it  is  of  the  Briton,  even 
though  the  former's  dwelling  was  without  the 
fortifications  of  a  mediaeval  stronghold.  The 
sanctity  of  the  hearth  may  be  something  more 
than  mere  immunity  from  the  tyranny  of  an 
arbitrary  police.  Where  the  altar  of  the  protecting 


i4          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

Zeus  Herkeios  stood,  and  the  Penates  held  sway, 
the  regulation  of  the  family  life  became  a  religious 
function.  The  inborn,  inviolable  privilege  of  such 
community  of  existence  sprang  from  that  primitive 
piety  which  united  the  members  of  the  household, 
accepted  every  peculiar  quality  as  a  natural  pheno- 
menon, and  by  a  lively  tolerance  lent  to  the  whole 
form  and  proportion.  Paternal  authority  in  no 
way,  and  domestic  slavery  only  apparently,  detracts 
from  this  ideal  of  the  Household.  Paternal  au- 
thority, although  in  its  essence  the  military  right 
of  the  chieftain,  was  mitigated  by  the  natural 
sympathy  and  affection  subsisting  between  father 
and  children.  It  is  true  that  in  Rome  it  was 
rigorously  enforced  ;  but  then  Rome  was  always 
crouching  ready  for  a  spring  upon  her  prey.  The 
rising  generation  was  subject,  indeed,  to  a  firm  will, 
but  restrictions  on  natural  development  were  alien 
to  the  spirit  of  this  will  ;  thus  no  chasm  of  mistrust, 
with  oppression  on  one  hand  and  rebellion  on  the 
other,  yawned  in  the  Pompeian  household.  Slaves, 
it  is  true,  had  to  endure  separation  from  their  kin  ; 
but  in  any  case  they  would  as  a  rule,  on  attaining 
maturity,  have  been  compelled  to  labour  for  their 
own  support.  Certainly  liberty  of  action  was 
denied  them  ;  but  for  the  most  part,  as  members  of 
the  household  enjoying  fair  treatment,  there  was 
little  to  embitter  their  burthen  of  systematic 
obedience.  The  first  changes  crept  into  these 
conditions  when  the  acquisition  of  immoderate 
wealth  transformed  the  house  into  a  palace  ;  when 
the  domestic  staff  increased  in  numbers  till  it 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          15 

formed  a  veritable  host  of  bondsmen  ;  when 
domesticity  was  stifled  by  ostentation  ;  and  when 
the  culture  of  the  great  capitals  developed  a  corre- 
sponding mode  of  life  in  Pompeii  to  that  of 
Alexandria  and  Rome.  It  was  then  that  the 
household,  as  a  civilising  influence,  fell  into 
decay,  its  efficiency  being  destroyed  by  a  system 
of  general  social  intercourse  which  replaced  the 
ties  that  had  hitherto  united  those  dwelling  under 
the  same  roof. 

Naturally  Pompeii  presents  every  conceivable 
individual  deviation  from  the  social  ground-plan  of 
the  house  ;  but  there  is  no  variation  in  essentials. 
There  are  small  dwellings  of  three  rooms  :  the 
narrow  entrance-passage  leads  past  the  work-room 
and  living-room  to  the  atrium,  which  is  at  the 
same  time  court  and  garden,  with  a  small  niche 
sacred  to  the  Lares.  In  the  houses  bordering 
the  sea-shore,  descending— as  it  frequently  occurs 
on  the  Italian  Riviera — to  a  depth  of  three  or  four 
storeys,  apartments  could  probably  be  hired.  Pos- 
sibly the  upper  chambers,  too,  which  were  shut  off 
from  the  interior,  and  approached  by  a  staircase 
leading  from  the  shops  without,  were  let  to  out- 
siders. 

But  there  were  also  stately  houses,  some  of  them 
compounded,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  evidence  or 
their  building-material  and  peculiarities  of  style,  of 
several  smaller  dwellings  belonging  to  different 
architectural  periods.  Roomy  enough  to  accom- 
modate several  families,  they  were  nevertheless 


16          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

occupied  by  single  households.  The  Casa  del 
Fauno^  with  its  several  entrances,  its  double  atrium, 
its  large  and  small  peristyles,  is  one  such  example 
of  the  sacrifice  of  the  organic  arrangement  of  the 
house  to  the  pretentiousness  of  wealth.  But  the 
man  who  could  adorn  his  tablinum  with  the  great 
mosaic  of  the  "  Battle  of  Alexander  "  must  have 
been  wealthy  enough  to  feel  himself  superior  to  the 
ancient  and  narrower,  but  purer,  principles. 

The  distribution,  number,  and  proportion  of  the 
apartments  would  also  depend  on  definite  tastes 
and  individual  relations.  One  householder  might 
welcome  a  slight  addition  to  his  income,  and 
therefore  let  his  exterior  rooms  to  artisans,  trades- 
men, or  publicans ;  or  may  have  tolerated  a 
discreet  chambre  garnie.  Another  carried  on  a 
trade  in  his  inside  court — possibly  that  of  a  baker 
or  fuller — and  employed  his  slaves  to  offer  his 
wares  at  the  street  front  of  his  house ;  or  else 
disposed  of  his  garden  produce  in  the  same  fashion. 
Many  a  well-to-do  proprietor  even  sold  the  wine 
from  his  country  estate  in  his  own  house,  in  the 
cantina^  as  the  modern  Italian  has  it.  Thus  the 
street  front  of  the  houses  was  enlivened  by  that 
picturesque  bustle  of  restaurants,  stores,  and  work- 
shops which  we  may  still  experience  in  modern 
Naples. 

Many  proprietors,  however,  had  no  desire  for 
shops  on  the  ground  floor  of  their  houses ;  or  the 
quieter  quarters  of  the  town  may  have  had  but  little 
trade.  In  such  cases  the  narrow  lanes  wound 
between  high  walls,  and  the  passer-by  could  devote 


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POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         17 

his  attention  to  the  inscriptions,  still  extant, 
roughly  scratched  or  painted  on  the  stucco,  which 
served  as  a  pathetic,  humorous,  or  serious  commen- 
tary on  public  life — neighbourly  chaff,  witticisms, 
election  notices,  appeals  for  assistance. 

But  these  manifestations  were  confined  to  the 
outer  walls  of  the  house.  The  door-porter  turned 
away  every  importunate  intruder  who  sought 
shelter  in  the  porch — not  solely,  perhaps,  on  account 
of  the  rain  ;  while  a  chained  dog  in  mosaic — "  Cave 
canem  " — also  gave  unmistakable  expression  to  the 
desire  of  the  household  for  quiet.  A  revered  sym- 
bol of  life,  the  phallus,  carved  in  the  plaster,  let  into 
the  wall,  or  painted  in  red — the  lucky  colour — beside 
the  door,  afforded  protection  against  the  black 
magic  of  the  malignant  wish  or  the  evil  eye.  Or 
a  painted  altar  adorned  with  snakes  placed  the 
dwelling  under  the  guardianship  of  those  ancient 
and  mysterious  divinities,  while  a  graceful  youth 
personified  the  Genius  loci. 

Like  blood  through  the  veins,  the  stream  of 
public  life  pulsated  along  the  streets  of  Pompeii 
towards  the  market,  the  theatres,  and  the 
temples,  whence  the  ebbing  tide  of  humanity 
recoiled  to  surge  about  the  threshold  of  the  house. 
As  he  stepped  across  that  threshold  the  citizen 
once  more  retired  into  himself,  his  faculties  stimu- 
lated and  developed  by  contact  with  the  events 
and  occurrences  of  the  outer  world,  and,  safe  in  the 
peaceful  stronghold  of  his  home,  was  able  to  collect 
and  arrange  his  thoughts.  Whether  his  atrium 
was  of  the  simplest,  or  girt  with  gorgeous  and 

B 


1 8          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

brightly  painted  columns  ;  whether  his  peristyle 
rose  in  artistic  terraces,  like  that  of  Marcus 
Lucretius,  adorned  by  cool  ponds  and  lovely  plants, 
or  whether  he  contented  himself  with  a  garden 
painted  in  one  corner  of  his  court  and  a  tiny  shell- 
fountain  ;  whether  he  possessed  special  dining- 
rooms  for  summer  heats  and  winter  chills,  or 
whether  the  stone  bench  of  his  triclinium  stood  in 
the  middle  of  the  court — the  citizen  of  Pompeii  in 
his  own  house  was  ever  the  monarch  of  his  modest 
realm,  lord  in  his  own  right  of  a  domestic  system 
that  use  had  converted  into  nature,  which  not 
merely  provided  for  the  needs  of  the  moment,  but 
was  in  itself  an  elevating  influence — a  homogeneous 
education — to  its  members.  In  truth  every  Pom- 
peian  house  was  a  centre  of  culture. 

The  Pompeian  house  is  no  longer  entirely 
Hellenic,  but  Greco- Roman  in  type.  The  concep- 
tions of  life  characteristic  of  the  two  races  were 
nearly  akin,  and  the  distribution  of  the  interior 
chambers  is  consequently  similar  in  all  essential 
points ;  but  their  domestic  uses,  which  were  de- 
termined by  the  position  of  woman  in  the  social 
system,  differed  widely. 

That  women  in  general  occupied  a  position  of 
inferiority  in  the  antique  world  is  a  myth.  The  fact 
that  they  filled  the  office  of  priestesses  is  proof  to 
the  contrary.  But,  after  all,  it  is  a  question  of 
proportion.  In  the  honest  world  of  the  ancients 
body,  soul,  and  intellect  were  all  of  equal  value* 
It  was  in  no  spirit  of  depreciation,  then,  that  the 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          19 

functions  of  mistress,  wife,  and  mother  were 
esteemed  the  most  important  of  woman's  duties. 
Nor  was  it  out  of  contempt  that  she  was  expected 
to  busy  herself  in  cooking  and  needlework,  instead 
of  dulling  her  fresh  intelligence  by  learning. 
Women  with  whom  intellect  would  have  its  way 
had  no  difficulty  in  finding  an  outlet  for  it : 
Corinna,  Sappho,  Diotima,  Aspasia,  Hypatia,  are 
only  a  few  among  many  such  names.  The  exi- 
gences of  our  state  of  over-population  may  in  these 
days  stimulate  a  girl  to  the  acquisition  of  every 
available  accomplishment,  as  a  matter  of  policy  ; 
in  olden  times  it  would  have  been  a  waste  of  her 
powers,  a  detriment  to  her  attractions. 

But  between  Hellas  and  Rome  there  is  a  finer 
distinction  in  the  appreciation  of  woman,  which  is 
at  base  a  type  of  the  difference  prevailing  in  educa- 
tional ideals,  an  expression  of  divergent  objects  in 
life.  This  we  find  clearly  defined  in  the  contrasts 
of  the  Hellenic  and  the  Pompeio-Roman  house. 

The  tablinum,  or  reception-room,  formed  the 
inner  boundary  of  the  Pompeian  house.  The 
laws  of  hospitality  made  visitors  free  of  the  apart- 
ments situated  on  the  hither  side  of  this  point, 
but  all  that  lay  beyond  the  narrow  side-passage,  or 
fauces,  was  sacred  from  the  intrusion  of  the  outside 
world. 

This  line  of  demarcation  existed  also  in  the  Hel- 
lenic house  ;  but  in  this  case  it  did  not  separate  the 
family  life  from  that  of  general  society,  but  served 
as  a  barrier  between  the  male  and  the  female  mem- 
bers of  the  household.  Woman1  s  domain  lay  in 


20         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

and  around  the  larger  garden-court  in  the  rear  ; 
while  in  the  front  of  the  house  man  reigned  supreme, 
and  formed  the  sole  point  of  contact  between  public 
and  private  life. 

When  a  boy,  at  the  age  of  seven,  was  received 
from  the  gyn&ceum  into  the  andrelon  he  cast  off 
feminine  influences,  and  became  a  man  among  men. 
Brought  at  an  early  age  into  contact  with  social  life 
at  the  palestra,  the  boy  was  still  subject  during  a 
lengthy  period,  first  of  all  to  the  tutelage  and  advice 
of  the  pedagogue,  and  then,  in  the  bond  of  friendship, 
to  his  intimate  companion.  The  girl,  whose  sports 
and  aspirations  were  for  the  most  part  bounded  by 
the  walls  of  the  gynseceum,  owed  her  education 
to  the  ties  of  female  friendship,  and  at  Sparta  even 
shared  in  gymnastics.  Then  when  the  young 
people  of  opposite  sexes,  their  characters  formed, 
were  brought  into  contact,  they  sought  and  found 
in  one  another's  society  companionship  and  friend- 
ship—as d  stinguished  from  the  alternate  comedy 
of  master  and  female  slave,  bondsman  and  mistress. 

Amoi  g  th*  Latin  races  individual  character  was 
less  marked,  and  friendship  consequently  less  es- 
teemed and  valued  :  family  ties  formed  the  sole 
basis  of  social  intercourse.  Thus,  there  being  no 
separation  of  the  sexes  in  domestic  life,  the  boy 
remained  until  a  late  period  under  feminine  control  ; 
he  was  not  hardened  by  contact  with  men.  If  this 
system  of  education  did  not  result  in  moral  disaster, 
it  is  to  the  natural  freshness  of  the  universal  con- 
ception of  life  that  the  credit  must  be  attributed. 
But  is  it  due  only  to  chance  that  among  the  Latins 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         21 

that  unfettered  flight  of  the  Hellenic  character  is 
nowhere  perceptible  ? 

Now  Pompeii,  it  is  true,  added  no  illustrious 
names  to  the  roll  of  fame  ;  but  the  Pompeian  house 
is  all  the  more  eloquent  of  the  natural  comfort  of 
average  Pompeian  life.  The  very  existence  of  ex- 
ceptional personalities  is  more  or  less  a  martyrdom. 
Their  genius  can  neither  be  transferred  nor  imitated  ; 
but  at  the  same  time  their  share  in  the  common  task 
of  humanity  is  also  exceptional.  The  lesser  and 
attainable  happiness,  on  the  other  hand,  is  com- 
pounded of  the  everyday  forces  of  the  world. 
Shattered  and  crumbling  though  it  be,  the  Pompeian 
house  yet  proves  that  it  is  practicable — that  it  is 
at  least  possible — to  bring  intelligence  and  beauty 
into  the  daily  existence. 

From  a  purely  architectural  point  of  view,  the 
Pompeian  house  is  a  work  of  genuine  art ;  but  its 
value  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  it  became  in  its 
turn  the  medium  of  a  still  higher  form  of  human 
achievement.  The  spirit  that  had  inspired  its  walls 
and  chambers  had  not  exhausted  itself  in  the  effort ; 
rising  ever  to  fresh  heights  of  living  feeling,  it  gave 
expression  to  the  latter  in  fresh  forms.  It  clothed 
the  interior  of  the  house  with  a  garment  of  beauty — 
floors,  ceilings,  and  especially  walls — though  with  a 
brilliance  less  audacious  than  that  of  the  Renaissance. 
The  walls,  to  which  the  gaze  involuntarily  directs 
itself  without  effort  or  constraint,  became  the  field 
upon  which  decorative  art  blossomed  forth  into 
blithe  and  luxuriant  vigour. 


22         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

To  the  Pompeian  his  wall  was  no  dead  blank  of 
masonry,  but  was  transformed  into  a  mirror  of  his 
sentiments.  The  wall  entered  into  his  life,  and  its 
decoration  drew  therefrom  its  deepest  inspiration 
This  was  only  partially  a  matter  of  architectural 
principle.  Such  a  style  is,  in  truth,  rooted  in  the 
general  conception  of  life,  and  the  latter,  again,  in 
the  unfathomable  depths  of  the  individual  nature. 

It  is  only  natural  that  the  ancient  world,  which 
recognised  the  body  as  the  highest  proof  of  the 
existence  of  a  soul,  should  have  nourished  especially 
lofty  sentiments  with  regard  to  the  receptacle  in 
which  that  body  moved,  as  well  as  to  those  physical 
actions  of  which  that  receptacle  was  the  principal 
scene.  It  was  no  arid,  meticulous  symmetry  of  the 
foot-rule  which  in  every  art  revealed  to  the  Greek 
the  secret  proportions  of  the  parts  ;  the  harmony 
that  grows  from  the  co-operation  of  all  the  senses 
was  the  infallible  touchstone  of  his  creations. 

The  epic  of  the  Iliad,  like  the  frieze  of  the  Par- 
thenon, was  a  complete  and  perfect  symphony.  In 
measured  rhythm  rises  and  falls,  waxes  and  wanes, 
the  part  allotted  to  each  figure,  each  movement,  each 
action.  On  a  foundation  of  minor  details  and  com- 
monplace events  there  is  built  up  a  structure  of 
lofty  and  imposing  narrative,  which  in  its  turn  cul- 
minates in  supreme  flights  of  genius  :  the  jubilant 
procession  at  the  banquet  of  the  Olympian 
divinities ;  the  ever-changeful  fight,  and  its  holo- 
caust of  victims,  with  which  Achilles  honoured 
the  obsequies  of  his  friend  before  Troy — on  the  one 
side  the  din  of  battle  and  the  pathos  of  unhappy  love. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          23 

on  the  other  valour  and  beauty  carrying  out  the 
behests  of  the  gods — all  the  parts  are  inexorably 
grouped  around  one  living  centre  into  foreordered, 
imperishable  form.  It  is  especially  characteristic  of 
every  product  of  Greek  plastic  art  that  it  is  instinct 
with  that  vitalising  energy  which,  emanating  from 
the  artist,  so  inspired  the  dull  marble  and  brass  that 
the  reposeful  harmony  of  limbs  proclaims  nothing 
but  latent  and  expansive  power.  The  Hellenic 
temples  and  theatres,  in  their  purely  sensuous 
features,  prove  that  beauty  of  form  merely  reveals 
the  excellence  of  the  essential  idea.  And  the  same 
applies  to  the  Hellenic  art  of  mural  decoration. 

In  its  early  stages,  before  it  commences  to  scale 
its  own  steep  path,  even  lofty  religious  art  is  but  a 
form  of  the  decorative.  In  its  maturity  it  rewards 
its  ancient  foster-mother  by  the  bestowal  of  its  own 
treasures  of  form  upon  her  airy  trifles.  In  the  hey- 
day of  Hellenic  art  artistic  mural  decoration  was 
reserved  for  temples  and  public  buildings,  the  walls 
of  houses  and  chambers  remaining  plain,  even  if 
colour-washed  ;  and  it  was  reserved  for  the  wealthy 
Greek  bourgeoisie  to  effect  a  change  in  this  respect. 
But  the  spirit  of  Hellenism,  breathing  its  inspiration 
into  Hellenistic  Greco-Roman  art,  owned  but  a 
transient  allegiance  to  mural  splendours  in  costly 
marble,  and,  harking  back  to  Nature,  set  the  walls 
aglow  with  scenes  that  spoke  of  life  to  their  living 
beholders,  bestowing  upon  man  what  had  hitherto 
been  sacred  to  the  Deity — an  only  too  intelligible 
retrograde  movement  of  the  social  instinct  in  times 
of  social  laxity. 


24          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

Greek  architecture  reached  its  zenith  in  the 
temples  of  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  B.C.,  when 
the  community  was  the  most  powerful  factor  of 
social  life  ;  Greek  painting  attained  its  perfec- 
tion between  the  middle  of  the  fifth  and  the 
close  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  when  the  develop- 
ment of  individualism  was  at  its  height  ;  but  Greek 
domestic  art  did  not  reach  its  high-water  mark 
until  mighty  Hellas  had  crumpled  into  ruin  ;  and  it 
is  in  a  foreign  land,  and  in  the  Greco-Roman 
mural  art  of  Pompeii,  that  we  have  to  admire  this 
autumnal  luxuriance  of  the  Hellenic  genius. 

The  most  ancient  of  the  Pompeian  styles  of 
mural  decoration  still  shows  leanings  towards  the 
opulent  splendours  of  Alexandria,  and  strives  to 
emulate  its  glittering  marble  panelling  by  means  of 
veneer.  The  demand  for  such  works  of  ostenta- 
tious elegance  was  enormous,  but  the  costly 
material  was  not  easy  to  procure,  and  thus  the 
brush  was  called  into  requisition  to  imitate  the 
variegated  markings  and  veinings  of  the  genuine 
marble.  The  entire  wall  might  then  be  made  to 
appear  as  though  it  were  formed  of  real  blocks,  set 
obliquely,  and  this  artificiality  pose  as  art.  But 
before  long  a  healthy  reaction  set  in,  and  mural  art 
aimed  at  attaining  its  results  by  means  of  colour 
alone,  preferring  simple  contrasts,  such  as  red 
against  green,  yellow  against  blue,  or  relying  on 
monochrome — red  or  black.  And  it  is  on  the 
basis  of  this  severe  and  reposeful  style  that  the 
genuine  and  characteristic,  in  short  the  Pompeian 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         25 

art  of  mural  decoration  arose.  The  feeling  for 
space  developed  in  a  new  direction,  and  began  to 
include  the  wall-surfaces. 

The  spectator's  point  of  vision  naturally  deter- 
mined the  very  centre  of  the  wall-space  as  the  key 
to  the  whole  scheme  of  decoration  ;  all  that  lay 
above  or  below,  to  right  or  left  of  this  point,  was 
utilised  for  the  accessories  and  setting.  The  wall- 
space  did  not  fall  perpendicularly  and  horizontally 
into  a  symmetrical  double  range  of  triple  panels,  but 
was  multiplied,  as  it  were,  into  nine  fields,  which, 
again,  were  not  defined  by  cold  straight  lines,  but 
whose  borders  themselves  fell  into  the  scheme  of 
decoration.  Here  and  there  the  side  fields  were 
also  subdivided — affording  a  wealth  of  artistic 
opportunities.  That  these  opportunities  were  but 
seldom  abused,  that  artistic  effect  is  but  seldom 
spoilt  by  overcrowding,  is  not  the  least  tribute  to 
the  mature  refinement  of  Hellenic  and  Greco- 
Roman  culture. 

The  object  of  that  culture  was  not  the  display 
of  skill,  but  the  realisation  of  its  own  aims — to 
stimulate  and  refresh  the  senses,  not  to  blunt  them  ; 
not  to  disintegrate  by  want  of  proportion,  but  to 
blend  together  in  harmony.  And  hence  the  eight 
marginal  fields  of  the  Pompeian  wall  produce  the 
effect  of  only  four  separate  component  parts — base, 
cornice,  and  two  pillars,  all  throwing  into  relief  the 
central  subject. 

By  an  easy  transition,  this  architectural  style  of 
Pompeian  interior  mural  decoration  repeatedly 
makes  excursions  into  the  province  of  outdoor 


26         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

architecture,  and  imitates  or  even  reproduces  its 
forms  ;  such  was  also  the  aim  of  earlier  decorative 
art.  Endeavours  were  made  to  reproduce  in  stucco 
the  white  splendour  of  marble,  and  the  whole  wall 
was  thus  transformed  into  the  bas-relief  representa- 
tion of  a  palace.  Lofty  columns,  dividing  the 
wall,  frame  glimpses  into  stately  vaulted  saloons, 
pavilions,  and  halls.  Flights  of  stairs  appear  to 
afford  access  to  these  scenes,  and  open  doors  show 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  servants.  But  even 
the  realism  of  this  sham  architecture  is  enhanced  by 
the  aid  of  painting,  and  galleries,  terraces,  staircases, 
and  arches  are  piled  up  in  a  bold  barocco  style  by 
the  fantastic  brush.  This,  the  characteristic  style 
of  the  last  days  of  Pompeii,  is  but  an  active  reflection 
of  the  riotous  architecture  of  the  Caesars,  as  it 
flourished  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay,  at  -Baiae, 
and  culminated  in  the  tastelessness  of  the  Golden 
House  of  Nero.  Just  as  the  splendour  of  the  mid- 
Renaissance  merged  directly  into  the  barocco^  so  did 
Hellenic  art  towards  the  end  repeatedly  expend  itself 
in  exuberant  tours  deforce,  such  as  the  "  Laocoon  " 
or  the  "  Farnese  Bull,  "  until  the  consciousness  of 
its  own  loftiness  was  blunted  and  lost  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  gaudy  courts  of  the  usurper  and  the 
Roman. 

Absolute  perfection  of  artistic  medium  leads  to 
misguided  attempts  at  reproducing  the  substance  of 
one  art  with  the  forms  of  another — the  technical 
artificiality  of  an  over-ripe  period.  At  the  same 
time  the  satiated  and  wearied  senses  yearn  for  the 
abnormal  and  startling  :  unconsciously  they  follow 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY        27 

a  retrograde  impulse  leading  them  in  the  direction 
of  the  childishly  barbaric — the  earliest  stages  of  art, 
when,  still  unschooled  and  undifferen dated,  its  aim 
was  decoration  pure  and  simple.  The  glorifica- 
tion of  the  humours  of  a  Maecenas  :  the  playthings 
of  a  moment :  glittering  spectacles  adapted  to  the 
narrow  point  of  view  of  the  spectator—  such  are 
the  theatrical  glories  of  the  barocco  art  of  all  time. 

i  This  style  of  architectural  painting  occurs  fre- 
quently, though  not  to  an  excessive  extent,  at 
Pompeii  ;  but  it  often  conveys,  perhaps  unintention- 
ally, an  impression  of  irony — of  a  smile  of  superio- 
rity. The  arches  curve  into  huge  flourishes ;  the 
figures  on  the  cornices  engage  in  the  maddest 
dances  and  combats  ;  the  pillars  are  indescribably 
slender  (possibly  there  were  just  such  golden 
columns  in  the  Roman  palaces)  :  here  they  no 
longer  rest  upon  the  solid  ground,  but  spring  from 
the  heads  of  genii  and  fabulous  sea-monsters,  from 
plants  and  grotesque  ornaments.  In  some  of  the 
most  striking  instances  they  represent  elegant 
candelabra.  Whereas  Rome  degraded  serious  art 
to  mere  decorative  purposes,  Greco-Roman  Pompeii, 
with  a  distant  echo  of  Attic  wit,  took  her  decora- 
tive art  with  genuine  seriousness.  After  all,  her 
great  ambition  was  mockingly  to  trump  the 
artistic  extravagances  of  the  capital ;  and  thus  she 
flung  a  joyous  network  of  dazzling  decoration 
athwart  her  walls,  to  the  exhilaration  of  her  own 
senses.  And  the  airy  grace  of  this  sportiveness 
proves  that  it  was  not  the  sheer  exaggeration  of 


28         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

provincial  copyists,  but  the  result  of  originality  of 
conception  and  refinement  of  technique. 

But  this  mastery  of  the  language  of  form  also 
teaches  us  that  it  is  not  prudent  to  regard  every  ac- 
cessory detail  of  an  antique  work  of  art  as  necessarily 
true  to  life.  This  is  a  fashion  with  many  enthusiasts, 
who,  reversing  the  procedure  of  the  naturalist,  are  de- 
sirous of  interpreting  the  life  of  the  ancients  by  the 
light  of  such  contemporary  representations,  pictorial 
or  plastic,  as  may  survive.  It  is  true  that  the  crea- 
tions of  the  Greek  artists,  high  priests  of  Nature, 
emanated  directly  from  the  precincts  of  reality  ;  but 
these  works  were  also  of  the  nature  of  religious  acts, 
and  it  is  consequently  an  ideal  aspect  of  life  that  they 
present  to  us.  They  hallowed  Nature,  instead  of 
transgressing  against  her,  by  perpetuating  the  rich 
natural  beauty  of  contemporary  humanity  only  in 
its  choicest  forms.  If  they  rose  superior  to  chance — 
which  is  nowadays  idolised  as  the  only  real  fidelity 
to  Nature — it  was  in  the  pursuit  of  lofty  objects. 
But  the  external  accessories  of  civilised  life — gar- 
ments, utensils,  buildings — exacted  no  such  scrupu- 
lous conscientiousness,  and  thus  we  may  take 
unfettered  delight  in  the  architecture  created  by 
Pompeian  imaginations  ;  since,  belonging  neither 
to  the  naturalistic  nor  to  the  classical  school,  it 
testifies  to  freedom  of  artistic  feeling  and  the  merry 
sportiveness  of  unfettered  humour. 

The  main  divisions  of  the  Pompeian  wall  were 
designed  to  facilitate  free  and  unconstrained  con- 
templation. Next  followed  the  ornamental  framing 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         29 

of  the  main  subject.  Unfettered  by  any  serious 
function,  this  ornamentation  was  free  to  spin  the 
bright  threads  of  its  sparkling  tale.  It  follows  the 
sportive  law  of  its  being,  and  now  soothes  by  its 
regularity,  now  excites  by  its  fickleness ;  while  the 
arrangement  of  the  wall-spaces  lends  to  it  a  facile  and 
pleasing  symmetry,  calming  and  peaceful  in  its  effect. 

The  perpendicular  lines,  whether  of  columns 
overtopping  one  another  or  of  slender  tree-trunks 
towering  into  the  sky,  carry  the  eye  easily  upward  ; 
while  the  horizontal  forms  lead  the  spectator  through 
rural  landscapes,  or  hunting  scenes  sweep  past  him. 
Not  even  the  angles  of  intersection  remain  un- 
utilised, but  are  pressed  into  the  service  of  a  rhyth- 
mically flowing  fancy  which  sees  life  in  every- 
thing. 

Here  a  winged  boy  bears  upon  his  head  a  plant, 
which  higher  up  becomes  a  column  and  bursts 
afresh  into  bright  foliage  ;  the  foot  of  the  winged 
genius,  however,  merges  into  the  graceful  spiral  of 
a  half-open  acanthus  leaf,  which  masks  with  its  con- 
volutions the  stiffness  of  the  angle,  and  diverts  the 
attention  of  the  observer  from  the  perpendicular 
to  the  horizontal  lines  of  the  composition.  The  eye 
is  then  caught  by  a  rollicking  procession  of  marine 
monsters,  until  the  eel-like  prolongation  of  the  body 
of  sea-horse  or  dolphin  once  more  carries  it  up- 
wards. Everywhere  it  encounters  fresh  surprises. 
Here  the  projection  of  a  feathery  side-branch  ;  or  a 
coloured  riband,  borne  in  the  beaks  of  birds,  invites 
to  a  rope-dance.  There  a  tree  is  transformed  into 
a  candelabrum,  whose  manifold  knobs  and  flutings 


30          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

are  so  many  steps  enticing  the  unwearied  gaze 
onwards  and  upwards. 

Only  actual  vision  can  convey  an  adequate  idea 
of  the  infinite  variety  of  these  creations,  and  of  the 
innumerable  combinations  of  groups  and  scenes  ; 
any  written  description  can  be  but  a  halting  one. 
Thus  one  single  door-frame  displays  a  bordering 
garland  of  acanthus  spirals,  and,  of  thirty-four,  all 
are  different !  And,  besides  this,  there  dwells 
among  the  leaves,  stalks,  and  thorns  a  merry  little 
world  of  birds  and  beetles,  hares,  mice,  lizards,  and 
snails — flying,  hopping,  and  crawling,  pecking, 
gnawing,  and  snarling,  hunting  and  hunted — in  no 
case  repeated,  amid  the  labyrinths  of  the  multiform 
foliage. 

Fantastic,  perhaps  !  but,  still  more  than  that,  a 
primitive  fellowship  of  Man  with  Nature,  which 
brought  him  such  unsought  treasures  of  spontaneity, 
grace,  and  humour.  It  is  only  an  eye  so  richly 
endowed  and  responsive,  only  a  sensibility  so  finely 
strung  as  this,  that  would  venture  to  outvie  Nature, 

(and  to  unite  forms  that  she  has  kept  severely  apart. 
It  is  only  a  mind  imbued  with  a  reverence  for 
Nature,  to  which  every  form  is  but  the  manifestation 
of  an  inward  force,  and  every  force  finds  embodi- 
ment in  form,  that  could  fashion  from  the  shapes  of 
man  and  beast  Fauns,  Centaurs,  Tritons,  and 
Nereids,  could  call  sea-horses  and  sea-griffins  into 
being,  could  conjure  the  tender  forms  of  lovely 
children  out  of  flower-bells,  and  conceive  human 
limbs  terminating  in  the  tendrils  of  plants.  Pom- 
peian  art  converted  these  impossibilities  into  realities. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         31 

This  world  of  fable  came  to  life  upon  the  walls  of 
Pompeii,  and  transformed  its  bare  rooms  into  an 
enchanted  bower  of  garlands,  woven  from  all  that 
was  fair  and  bright  and  joyous. 

Compare  the  modern  treatment  of  wall-spaces 
with  that  of  Pompeii !  The  Middle  Ages  saw  their 
walls  hung  with  weapons  and  armorial  bearings.  It 
was  reserved  for  the  Renaissance  to  recognise  once 
more,  during  a  limited  period,  the  decorative  value 
of  these  walls,  and  to  adorn  them  with  its  most 
brilliant  conceptions.  The  Gobelins  of  a  subsequent 
period  was  at  best  a  makeshift,  and  then — the 
modern  wall-paper  !  With  what  tastelessness  of 
perverted  ornamentation  has  the  past  century  and 
a  half  often  presumed  to  torture  us,  in  a  nightmare 
of  casual  caricature,  grinning  forth  from  a  mono- 
tonous wilderness  of  distorted  posies  !  Even  gloomy 
panelling  and  cold  whitewash  were  not  so  hopeless, 
for  they  could  always  be  brightened  by  a  fine 
picture.  Even  the  fresh  energy  of  the  latest 
artistic  industry  devoted  to  mural  decoration  is  still 
occupied  in  feeling  its  way  :  the  threefold  harmony 
of  its  scroll-work,  the  purer  style  manifested  in  its 
employment  of  forms  of  life,  has  still  to  find  an 
outlet  into  the  realms  of  art — not,  by  the  way,  in 
mere  imitation  of  either  Pompeian  or  Greek  forms, 
but  in  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  our  own  conditions 
of  life  and  of  our  mental  processes.  When  that 
time  arrives  our  dwellings  will  no  longer  be  taste- 
lessly ornamented,  but  really  adorned. 

To  the  Pompeian  his  decorated  wall  was  by  no 
means  an  optional  piece  of  ornamentation,  but  a 


32         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

second  skin,  sensitive  to  the  impression  of  his 
feelings  :  no  inanimate  generator  of  dulness,  but 
the  reflection  of  his  soul,  and  at  the  same  time  its 
guiding  influence.  This  cultured  decorative  taste 
of  the  Pompeians  bears  witness  to  the  fact  that 
under  the  sway  of  Greco-Roman — and  how  much 
more  of  Hellenic  ? — art  human  achievement  once 
walked  hand  in  hand  with  culture. 

Had  it,  however,  remained  the  sole  manifestation 
of  the  sensuous  joyousness  of  Pompeii,  the  decora- 
tive art  that  ornamented  Pompeian  walls  would  be 
of  but  secondary  importance.  The  call  cf  full- 
blooded  life  would  have  been  weak  indeed  had  it 
awakened  no  other  echo  than  the  airy  play  of  mere 
decoration.  But  the  Pompeian  walls  bear  witness, 
in  the  subjects  depicted  upon  them,  to  the  senti- 
ments, aspirations,  and  ideals  that  animated  those 
who  once  dwelt  within  them. 

Pompeian  painting  has  been  occasionally  stig- 
matised, with  a  contemptuous  shrug,  as  purely 
"  illustrative,"  as  consisting,  to  some  extent,  of  cold 
and  insignificant  object-lessons  in  the  religious 
history  of  the  Hellenic  world.  It  would  indeed  be 
no  small  credit  to  Greek  painting  to  have  "  illus- 
trated "  and  "  illuminated  "  contemporary  life  ;  but, 
at  any  rate,  cold  and  insignificant  it  is  not.  Its  best 
works  speak  for  themselves,  even  without  the 
necessity  of  referring  to  the  original  fables  for 
enlightenment.  Those  fables,  and  the  subjects  of 
many  of  the  pictures,  have  given  rise  to  lengthy 
controversies ;  but  even  when  first  revealed  to  the 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         33 

world  these  striking  works  excited  an  admiration 
in  which  there  was  no  discordant  note. 

Naturally  the  different  technique  of  modern 
painting  attains,  and  strives  to  attain,  other  effects  ; 
but  Greek  painting  came  to  maturity  in  the  glowing 
light  and  free  air  of  the  South,  hand  in  hand  with 
sculpture — each  the  mirror  of  that  nude  art  which 
drew  its  inspiration  from  the  Palestra. 

The  chief  subject  of  their  art  being  the  human 
form — that  exact  likeness  of  the  Deity,  and  his 
noblest  Temple — the  painters  of  those  days  had  no 
reason  for  refining  their  colouring  into  the  hundred 
nuances  of  tone  that^mingle  in  the  drapery  and  flesh- 
tints  of  figures  seen  in  the  damp  shade  of  trees, 
or  the  chiaroscuro  of  a  glazed  apartment.  In  the 
misty  Netherlands  the  task  of  the  soft  oil-medium 
was  to  reproduce  vague  and  dissolving  contours, 
and  the  native  land  of  oil-painting  was  also  that  of 
Rembrandt.  In  Venice,  the  City  of  Waters,  Titian, 
Tintoretto,  and  the  Veronese  carried  the  art  of 
warm  diffused  colouring  to  its  highest  pitch  :  hence 
we  acclaim  them  as  masters  of  colour.  In  bright 
Hellas  the  function  of  colour  was  not  to  dazzle, 
but  to  depict  limbs  of  splendid  physical  beauty. 
That  which  in  a  Northern  atmosphere  would  have 
appeared  stiff,  wooden,  and  lifeless  was  transformed 
by  the  clear  light  of  the  South  into  free  and  natural 
simplicity.  The  severest  school  of  Greek  art 
admitted  only  red,  yellow,  white,  and  black  as 
artistic  colours,  rejecting  violet,  blue,  and  green  ; 
and  yet  it  was  to  the  works  of  these  artists  that  the 
fullest  measure  of  appreciation  was  accorded. 

c 


34          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

The  painters  of  the  early  Renaissance,  somewhat 
like  Van  der  Goes  and  the  inventor  of  oil-painting, 
Van  Eyck,  himself,  aimed  at  fulness  of  colouring,  at 
resonance  of  vivid  tone.  Michelangelo,  sculptor 
and  painter  of  the  nude,  despised  oil-painting  as 
effeminate  and  amateurish  ;  while  Leonardo,  a 
master  of  the  magic  of  chiaroscuro,  carried  his  re- 
searches into  the  technique  of  the  art  of  Polygno- 
tus — just  as  Bocklin  later  on  succeeded  in  drawing 
new  power  from  the  old  mediums. 

Undoubtedly  Pompeian  painting  had  its  limits, 
and  its  peculiarities  proceed  in  part  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  executed  neither  upon  canvas  or  wood, 
nor  yet  upon  the  hastily  prepared  surface  of  the 
more  modern  fresco,  but  that,  owing  to  the  pre- 
liminary apportionment  of  the  available  space, 
almost  the  entire  wall  admitted  of  treatment  in 
colour  at  the  artist's  complete  leisure.  But,  after 
all,  the  severer  style  of  technique  is  only  the  tool 
of  a  master  spirit.  Greek  painting  is  the  art  of 
line,  as  far  as  line  can  convey  form,  and  by  means 
of  form  the  workings  of  the  life  within  ;  but  it  is 
at  the  same  time  the  art  of  colour,  for  the  blue  of 
the  heavens,  the  green  of  the  trees,  the  rose  on  a 
maiden's  cheek  were  too  dear  to  the  Greeks  to  be 
altogether  renounced  as  subjects  for  their  art. 
Their  brightly  coloured  draperies,  brilliantly 
decorated  temples,  and  painted  statuary  testify  to 
their  high  appreciation  of  colour,  which  even  the 
weather-beaten  condition  of  the  Pompeian  colour- 
tones  cannot  altogether  disguise. 

It  is  only  when  wan  listlessness,  anaemic  spiri- 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         35 

tuality,  and  Northern  mysticism  are  to  be  galvanised 
into  life  and  interest  by  the  tremulous  play  of 
broken  light  and  colour  that  the  art  of  Greek 
painting  fails  to  convince  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
on  that  account  debarred  from  the  representation  of 
those  vague,  inchoate,  and  shadowy  sentiments 
which  pass  in  these  days  for  the  true,  because  the 
only  tolerated  spiritual  life. 

Pompeian  painting  includes  the  whole  range  of 
subjects  treated  by  later  art,  with  the  exception  of 
portraiture,  which  was  relegated  almost  entirely  to 
the  sculptor,  and  is  therefore  in  this  connection  of 
relatively  little  importance  ;  though  the  portraits 
ofPaquius  Proculusand  his  wife  may  be  mentioned. 
Apart  from  this  branch  of  art,  we  have  still-life  . 
and  genre,  landscape  and  animal  subjects  ;  but  the 
^  principal  place  is  taken  by  descriptive  painting, 
and  that  chiefly  of  a  religious  character.  The 
architectural  arrangement  of  the  walls,  on  whose 
surfaces  all  these  arts  are  represented,  classifies 
them  according  to  their  respective  intrinsic  values 
— judged  by  human  standards.  Still-life,  genre^ 
landscape,  and  animal  studies,  so  far  as  they  consti- 
tute independent  subjects,  are  almost  entirely  con- 
fined to  the  border  spaces,  and  even  the  two  large 
side  compartments  to  the  right  and  left  are  reserved 
for  more  important  themes.  In  the  majority  of 
cases  it  is  thus  the  horizontal  decorative  framework, 
such  as  the  representations  of  cornices  and  pediments, 
which,  in  intimate  connection  with  the  rich  orna- 
mentation, provide  a  base  for  the  still-life  and  the 


36         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

genre,  the  beasts  and  the  trees.  This  differentiation 
in  values  is  still  further  accentuated  by  the  less 
careful  execution  of  these  secondary  paintings. 

Man  is  undoubtedly  the  central  figure  in  Greek 
art,  the  rest  of  Nature  having  no  essential  claim  to 
consideration,  except  as  the  environment  of  Man. 
But,  encompassing  Man,  she  derives  from  him  also 
his  sense  of  vitality,  and  beasts  as  well  as  plants  in 
the  Pompeian  scheme  of  Nature  lead  a  conscious 
existence,  whereby  their  human  interest  is  enhanced. 
It  is  thus  incorrect  to  deny  to  the  art  of  the  Greeks 
a  comprehension  of  "  landscape "  :  their  belief  in 
the  (jentus  loci,  in  the  nymphs  of  the  springs,  in  the 
Dryads  of  the  trees,  in  the  deities  of  the  forest  and 
the  stream,  are  proof  to  the  contrary.  But  the 
humanised,  polytheistic  attributes  with  which  such 
fancies  invested  it  prevented  its  ever  becoming  a 
subject  of  art  for  its  own  sake.  Here  again  Dutch 
genius  was  the  first  to  reveal  to  modern  mid- 
European  fog-chilled  culture  the  artistic  values 
that  lay  in  meadow,  wood,  and  copse,  and  the 
sentimentality  of  a  Pantheism  shrinking  from  the 
haunts  of  men  served  to  enhance  the  reverence 
evinced  for  Nature's  solitudes. 

The  deck,  however,  child  of  the  South,  regarded 
Nature  simply  as  a  setting  to  the  figure  of  Man,  and 
it  was  through  and  by  the  latter  that  the  landscape 
derived  its  awesome  grandeur  or  disclosed  its  joy- 
ous grace.  Thus,  in  Homer,  the  storm  at  sea 
redoubles  its  living  fury  that  it  may  lash  Odysseus 
on  his  wreck  ;  while  Theocritus  makes  the  fragrance 
of  the  earth,  of  the  vineyards  and  olive  trees,  ascend 


*M 


Photo.  Alinari 

THE  CENTAUR  CHIRON   INSTRUCTING  ACHILLES    IN  THE 
ART   OF   PLAYING  THE   LYRE 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          37 

mingled  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  peasant 
folk. 

Painting,  as  we  know  it  in  Pompeian  examples, 
is  content  in  its  more  important  compositions  simply 
to  indicate  the  landscape.  Yet  it  is  in  truth  merely 
a  matter  of  condensation,  when  a  mountain  range  is 
represented  by  a  single  rock,  or  a  forest  by  two  or 
three  trees.  For  the  human  interest,  the  true  sub- 
ject of  the  picture,  requires  but  a  limited  space  for 
its  development,  and  any  delineation  of  the  distant 
landscape  would  only  distract  the  observer's  atten- 
tion and  depreciate  the  human  value.  In  the  less 
ambitious  works,  however,  landscape  stands,  as  is 
reasonable,  on  a  footing  of  its  own.  Perchance  a 
traveller  is  represented  passing  a  rustic  sanctuary  ;  an 
antique  Hermes  indicates  the  road,  a  sparse  grove  of 
cypresses  clings  to  the  steep  sides  of  the  mountains, 
cleft  by  ravines,  which  enclose  the  valley — just  such  a 
woodasBenozzoGozzoli's  "Procession  of  the  Magi," 
in  the  domestic  chapel  of  the  Medici,  shows  upon  the 
Tuscan  hills.  Or  we  are  shown  an  altar  with  two 
stone  pillars  ;  the  sturdy  limb  of  a  forked  oak-tree 
has  grown  through  the  cross-piece  forming  the 
frieze,  in  like  manner  that  picturesque  holm-oaks 
are  frequently  represented  in  well-executed  studies 
of  foliage,  r  arther  on,  embosomed  mid  a  distant 
range  of  hills,  we  catch  a  glimse  of  an  arm  of  the  sea, 
into  which  projects  a  peninsula  bearing  a  small 
temple.  Chapels,  temples,  images  of  the  Gods,  are 
not  infrequent,  and  there  is  also  no  lack  of  ruins — 
broken  columns,  ruined  halls  and  causeways — a 
legacy  of  the  civil  wars ;  in  short,  all  the  elements 


38         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

of  genuine  romantic  landscape  !  We  encounter 
characteristic  rustic  dwellings,  stately  buildings,  or 
even  the  whole  of  an  opulent  seaport  town,  with 
just  such  effect  as  the  Bay  of  Naples  might  be  ex- 
pected to  exercise  upon  the  rendering  of  such  a 
subject. 

Animals  are  frequently  depicted  in  a  setting  of 
landscape,  to  the  mutual  advantage  of  both  subjects. 
Was  it  not  in  the  animal  studies  of  Jordaens  that 
his  collaborator  Rubens  proved  his  worth  as  a  land- 
scape-painter ?  Thus  on  the  Peristyle  wall  of  the 
Casa  della  Caccia  the  scene  of  the  hunt  is  laid  in  a 
forest.  But  where  the  artist  has  drawn  upon  his 
imagination  for  the  landscape  the  animals  also  are 
unconvincing — at  all  events,  in  cases  where  the 
possibility  of  ocular  experience  was  precluded  ; 
such  as  the  Nile  scenes,  in  which  dwarfs  engage  in 
combat  with  hippopotami  and  crocodiles.  On  the 
other  hand,  animals  indigenous  to  the  country  are 
genuinely  true  to  Nature — the  cat  killing  a  quail, 
the  hare  nibbling  grapes,  the  fish,  the  dogs,  wolves, 
deer,  and  wild  boars.  The  chargers  in  the  mosaic 
of  the  "  Battle  of  Alexander  "  are  full  of  life,  and 
even  the  lion  in  a  large  picture  of  Orpheus,  although 
— in  spite  of  all  the  baiting  of  wild  beasts  at  the 
amphitheatre — hardly  convincing,  at  least  possesses 
the  naturalness  of  the  conventional  lion  of  Greek 
statuary. 

Granting  that  the  renderings  of  animal  life  are 
thus  occasionally  inadequate  or  conventional  in 
effect — as,  for  instance,  the  serpents  on  the  domestic 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          39 

altars,  the  explanation  is  generally  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  the  aesthetic  and  religious  needs  of  the 
generality  of  Pompeians  depended  for  their  expres- 
sion solely  on  the  artistic  skill  of  worthy  artisans. 
But  it  is  at  least  more  pleasing  to  see  animals  ren- 
dered with  artificiality  and  man  depicted  with 
animation  and  truth,  than  to  find  beasts  and  flowers 
portrayed,  as  in  Japanese  art,  with  astonishing 
fidelity,  while  the  human  figure  remains  at  a  dead 
level  of  stiff  and  sprawling  conventionality. 

Animal  life  is,  however,  most  widely  drawn  upon 
for  the  higher  order  of  decorative  work,  and  in  this 
connection  one  of  the  most  popular  subjects  is  the 
flying  swan — also  occurring  in  pairs,  as  companion 
figures.  But  theirs  is  no  stretching  flight,  but 
rather  a  soaring  ascent,  calculated  to  carry  the  eye, 
by  way  of  the  long,  curving  necks,  up  to  the 
garlands  fluttering  above. 

Later  on  the  representation  of  animal  life  passes 
almost  directly  into  the  region  of  genre — hunting 
scenes,  battles,  and  races  between  beasts  and  Genii 
frequently  occur  ;  but  in  these  studies  the  Genii 
soon  become  the  central  figures.  Excellence  in 
execution  and  fidelity  to  Nature  distinguish  these 
studies  in  genre,  or,  rather,  in  Genii.  The  idea 
which  our  imagination  clothes  with  the  forms  of 
withered  gnomes  or  bearded  cobolds,  Pompeian 
fancy  invested  with  the  charming  attributes  of 
charming  children. 

The  spirit  and  the  joy  ousness  of  boyhood  breathes 
in  all  these  youthful  forms  that  people  the  Pompeian 
walls — akin,  indeed,  to  the  putti  of  the  Renaissance, 


40         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

but  frequently  a  shade  older,  freer,  more  mature. 
We  surprise  these  gleesome  spirits  m  the  full  swing 
of  their  blithe  progress.  They  dance  along,  making 
music  as  they  go,  in  ever-changing  poses,  astounding 
in  their  variety,  yet  unstudied  and  free  as  Nature 
herself.  It  is  only  in  the  playground  that  the  eye 
could  seek  to  accustom  itself  to  such  poetry  of 
motion.  A  stucco  ceiling  from  neighbouring  Grag- 
nano  affords  the  highest  manifestation  of  this  art. 

Elsewhere  we  encounter  these  youthful  Genii, 
often  of  both  sexes,  gathering  flowers  and  grapes. 
We  find  them,  like  their  faraway  kiri  in  old 
Cologne,  working  in  wood  and  metals,  at  the 
fulling-mill  and  the  wine-press,  or  engaged  in 
burlesque  combats  with  monsters.  In  a  similar 
capacity  to  the  guardian  angels  of  the  present  day, 
they  are  interwoven  with  the  whole  life  of  the 
Pompeian,  peopling  his  walls  with  silent  asso- 
ciates in  his  joys  and  sorrows.  Whither  have  they 
vanished,  these  friendly  gnomes  ?  The  inquisitive 
wife  of  the  Burgomaster  of  Cologne  is  a  parable  ! 
Decadent  ourselves,  and  incapable  of  creating 
living  forms,  we  have  dissected  and  resolved  all 
things  into  their  constituent  elements,  until  we 
have  proved  the  ultimate  atom  to  be  but  an  aggre- 
gation of  negations  !  Blind  to  the  real  kernel 
of  our  own  being,  we  have  lopped  off  as  useless 
the  flower-decked  branch  from  whence  the  tiny 
divinities  of  the  beneficent  powers  of  Nature 
smiled  upon  us.  Now,  impoverished  through  our 
own  covetousness,  we  one  and  all  languish  in 
bondage  to  the  sole  god,  Mammon. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         41 

Hellenism  although  in  the  Olympian  religion  of 
morals  it  had  scaled  a  human  heaven,  never  wan- 
dered far  from  Nature,  and  the  earth  which  formed 
the  complement  of  that  heaven  rested  on  the  ancient 
reverence  for  Nature,  which  recognised  on  all  sides 
independent  vital  forces.  It  was  to  these  that  the 
Pompeian  paid  his  tribute  of  gratitude  and  reverence 
when  he  summoned  youthful  Genii — their  brightest 
manifestation — into  his  presence  in  his  pictures  and 
the  decorations  of  his  walls.  And  even  if  this 
faith  had  done  nothing  more  than  rejoice  the  eye 
and  refresh  the  senses  by  the  Anacreontic  sweetness 
of  its  conceptions,  it  would  still  have  conferred  a 
blessing  and  a  benefit  on  life  which  we  might  well 
envy. 

Reared  on  deeply-rooted  foundations,  the  genre- 
painting  of  Pompeii  casts  aside  those  paltry  and 
trivial  qualities  which  are  characteristic  of  the  style. 
The  insignificance  of  pictures  owing  their  origin  to 
the  mere  accident  of  circumstances  gives  place  to  a 
network  of  more  refined  and  definite  personal 
relations;  while  the  subjects  chosen  approach  more 
nearly  to  the  severity  of  the  religious,  the  heroic, 
and  the  erotic.  The  boy  now  becomes  a  full-grown 
youth,  the  sportings  of  the  Genii  wax  into  the 
heroic  deeds  of  the  mighty  Past,  and  the  lax  bond 
of  their  influence  is  replaced  by  an  earnest  inter- 
change of  sentiment  between  Gods  and  men.  In 
this  manner  does  the  Pompeian  art  of  Genii-paint- 
ing serve  as  an  immediate  stepping-stone  to  a 
higher  plane  of  achievement* 


42         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

On  entering  this  fresh  phase  we  are  at  once 
greeted  by  the  same  Genii ;  but  they  are  now  God- 
like youths,  who  skim  through  the  blue  heavens 
bearing  torches,  like  incarnate  beams  of  light,  or 
sit,  in  the  form  of  their  lord  and  master  Eros,  by 
the  waterside,  and  aid  the  Goddess  of  Love  in  her 
Jishing.  Or  they  pace  along  in  the  guise  of  the 
Muses,  or  form  the  retinue  of  Apollo  the  Sun  God 
— the  sun-disc  in  his  hand  and  a  flaming  corona 
about  his  brow.  In  proportion  as  the  Genii  thus 
rise  towards  the  level  of  the  high  Gods,  they  give 
place  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale  to  lesser  spirits — 
to  that  hardy  race  of  elves  and  water-sprites,  the 
Fauns  and  Tritons,  wild  sprigs  of  Nature ;  or  there 
are  Bacchantes,  cradled  in  the  intoxicating  maze  of 
the  Dionysian  mysteries,  and  followed  by  a  heavy 
cavalry  of  male  and  female  Centaurs,  curvetting 
and  prancing  in  lickerish  wantonness ;  or  Nereids, 
borne  along  on  foam-crested  sea-horses,  represent 
the  meaner,  older,  more  mundane  deities. 

Very  frequently,  however,  the  lesser  powers  are 
but  the  retinue  of  a  greater  deity,  and  in  that  case 
find  their  allotted  position  in  the  side  spaces  of  the 
wall,  the  place  of  honour  being  reserved  for  the 
mightier  divinity.  Thus  the  Fauns,  Hermaphro- 
dites, Satyrs,  and  Bacchantes  of  the  accessory  pic- 
tures are  only  apparently  independent  compositions, 
and  in  reality  form  the  retinue  of  Dionysus,  supreme 
in  the  central  picture.  In  the  same  manner, 
priestly  youths  and  virgins  are  depicted  in  the  imme- 
diate vicinity  of  the  deity  whose  ministers  they  are  ; 
while  the  decorative  portions  of  the  wall  become  as 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         43 

it  were  the  wings  of  the  scene,  behind  which  the 
remaining  actors  in  the  incident  portrayed  are 
gathered  in  plastic  groups. 

There  is  nevertheless  a  well-defined  boundary 
line,  beyond  which  these  forms  cease  to  be  mere 
generic  types,  and,  assuming  a  personality  of  their 
own,  enter,  duly  provided  with  names  and  cha- 
racters, the  great  Pantheon  of  Mythology — thus 
speaking  to  the  observer  of  personal  life  and  expe- 
rience, even  though  its  purport  be  one  of  eternal, 
universal  application.  However  captivating  and 
full  of  charm  the  effect  of  the  figures  and  pictures 
of  the  earlier  phases  may  be  in  the  freshness  of  their 
rendering,  still  it  is  far  outweighed  by  the  thrill 
with  which  the  more  personal  interest  of  these  later 
compositions  grips  the  imagination ;  as  though 
actual  life  radiated  from  these  fading  colours  and 
lines  which  are  rapidly  vanishing  beneath  the  hand 
of  Time.  A  melancholy  glamour  steals  over  the 
solitary  beholder,  a  feeling  of  awe  pervades  his 
senses,  which  empty  words  could  never  convey ; 
but  on  the  wall  of  a  small  lonely  house,  that  of 
Lucius  Cornelius  Diadumenos,  in  the  Vicolo  del 
Ealcone  Pensile,  there  is  a  priceless  but  little-known 
picture  which  inspires  these  sensations  in  a  peculiar 
degree. 

The  circular  olive  -  green  background,  from 
which  the  smiling,  sunburnt,  curly-headed  flageolet- 
player  meets  our  gaze,  harmonises  well  with  the 
red  of  the  wall.  But  it  is  not  merely  a  comely 
Campanian  shepherd-boy,  playing  a  reed-pipe,  that 
we  have  here  before  us  ;  nor  yet  the  portrait  of 


44         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

some  contemporary  dear  to  the  artist  or  his  patron. 
To  the  Pompeian  it  was  the  picture  of  the  beauti- 
ful Olympus,  once  wooed  by  Marsyas,  or  even  by 
Pan  himself — a  story  immortalised  by  the  fine 
marble  group  at  Naples.  Here  he  is  alone,  but 
the  whole  cycle  of  legend  to  which  he  belongs  was 
a  living  reality  to  the  minds  of  the  age  which 
created  the  picture,  and  the  man  whose  wish  it  was 
to  have  it  ever  before  his  eyes.  And  yet,  again,  this 
is  not  merely  the  hero  of  an  ancient  fable,  but  the 
incarnate  roguishness  ofjoie  de  vivre^  rejoicing  in  its 
glamour  of  love,  and  seeking  in  the  play  of  Art 
a  higher  revelation — a  resonant  affirmation  of  its 
existence. 

The  comprehensive  significance  of  these  mythi- 
cal representations  must  not  be  lost  sight  of.  Half 
poesy,  and  as  such  a  gospel  of  natural  religion,  and 
half  primordial  human  life,  celebrating  every  day 
its  own  regeneration,  and  in  the  joy  which  it  begets 
finding  its  own  nobility — such  was  the  function  of 
mythology  in  Greek  art,  and  all  Art  is  comprised  in 
it.  And  there  is  no  essential  difference  in  the 
manner  in  which  the  artists  of  the  Renaissance — 
genuine  children  of  Nature  in  their  freshness  of 
perception — transfused  the  blood  of  their  own  per- 
sonal experience  into  the  sacred  legends  that  had 
been  taught  them  ;  ever  and  again  transferring  the 
pious  drama  to  the  stage  whereon  their  own  parts 
were  played  ;  transforming  the  Holy  Family  into 
Italians,  in  a  setting  of  Italian  landscape,  and  casting 
their  own  mistresses  for  the  part  of  the  Madonna, 
and  their  bosom  friends  for  those  of  youthful  Saints. 


Naples,  Museo  Nazionale 


ZEUS    AND    HERA 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         45 

But  genuine  Art  can  do  no  other.  What  has 
once  been  divinely  established  as  a  profound  truth 
of  human  existence  must  ever  again  in  fresh  form 
confirm  the  ancient  mystery  ;  that  is  the  ultimate 
essence  of  Art.  As  symbols  of  Eternity,  compre- 
hending all  human  nature,  and  reflecting  it  back  to 
ultimate  primordial  causes,  these  myths  do  not  by 
any  means  support  the  one-sided  logic  of  the  brain. 
The  latter  may,  in  its  receptivity,  here  too  observe 
and  anticipate,  but  has  not  the  task  of  reconciling 
deep  primaeval  associations  with  the  short-lived 
mosaic  of  its  own  ideas. 

It  is  only  when  viewed  in  this  light  that  Art 
becomes  anything  more  than  mere  technical  facility, 
truly  undeserving  of  the  sympathy  which  Humanity, 
wiser  than  either  practical  or  abstract  book-learning, 
has  ever  bestowed  on  her.  Art  is  either  a  living 
natural  religion  or — nothing. 

An  especially  prominent  part  is  played  in 
Pompeian  art  by  the  Bacchic  legendary  cycle. 
Although  pre-Olympian,  the  cult  of  Bacchus 
survived  under  Greek  influence  even  in  its  older 
form,  which  not  only  exalted  joyousness  as  the  true 
Dionysian  spirit,  and  created  for  itself  important 
functions  in  the  drama,  but  also  celebrated  it  in  the 
intoxicated  exaltation  of  humanity  to  an  enraptured 
union  with  Divinity  itself — by  wine,  by  the  dance, 
by  music,  and  by  the  joys  of  love.  Naturally  this 
older  range  of  emotions,  ever  resurgent  in  mystics, 
from  the  Persian  Sufi  to  the  Christian  monk,  ac- 
quired renewed  force  when  the  Olympian  religion, 


46         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

with  the  decline  of  Greek  influence,  decayed  at  its 
roots. 

But  as  all  religions  were  represented  in  the 
Roman  world-empire,  every  single  cult  was  inspired 
with  apprehension  at  this  Bacchanalian  recru- 
descence, and  even  the  arid  spirit  of  the  Capitol 
stamped  as  an  orgy  what  had  hitherto  been  simply 
a  festival  procession  :  Bacchanalian  sensualities 
were  evolved  from  the  commemorative  sports  of 
inspired  servants  of  the  God.  Nevertheless,  that 
which  in  actual  life  had  so  completely  lost  its 
significance  was  re-invested  at  the  hands  of  Art 
with  all  its  ancient  splendour,  its  ancient  glamour, 
and  shines  upon  us  in  untarnished  brilliance  from 
the  Pompeian  walls.  Not  that  there  was  any  lack 
in  Pompeii  of  that  class  of  minor  incidental  pictures 
the  object  of  which  is  frankly  the  titillation  of  the 
senses  ;  but,  even  then,  they  were  almost  entirely 
confined  to  the  places  in  which  we  find  them — 
houses  of  ill-fame,  long  ago  transformed  from 
temples  of  joy,  served  by  priests  and  priestesses  of 
pleasure,  into  semi-clandestine  abodes  of  ignoble  de- 
sires. Widely  different  is  the  spirit  that  animates 
the  genuine  pictures  of  the  Bacchanalian-erotic  cult, 
and  only  prudery  in  search  of  a  pose  could  take  ex- 
ception to  a  naked  Silenus,  or  could  even  consign  to 
seclusion,  on  the  plea  of  indecency,  a  painting  of 
such  natural  refinement  as  that  of  Priapus,  the  God 
of  generation,  with  his  fruit-laden  scales,  so  jealously 
confined  under  lock  and  key  in  the  entrance  to  the 
House  of  the  Vettii. 

The  principal  hero  of  these  Bacchic  paintings  i& 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         47 

naturally  Dionysus  himself.  We  encounter  his 
youthful  flower-crowned  figure  either  alone  or  ac- 
companied by  his  panther,  and  perchance  ministering 
to  its  thirst ;  or  leaning  upon  his  favourite  Ampelos; 
or  erect  in  hermaphroditic  beauty,  while  Silenus 
plays  the  lyre.  Then  again  we  see  him  approach 
the  sleeping  Ariadne,  whilst  audacious  Fauns  draw 
aside  her  veil ;  or  else  the  God  and  his  beloved 
sweep  by  in  joyous  procession.  The  numerous 
pictures  of  Ariadne,  which  usually  depict  the  boy 
Eros  pointing  out  to  the  abandoned  maiden  the  ships 
of  Theseus  upon  the  high  seas,  also  belong,  strictly 
speaking,  to  this  cycle. 

Around  these  two  principal  figures  there  groups 
itself  the  entire  Bacchanalian  pageant,  the  Fauns 
and  Bacchantes  whose  pictured  forms  mark  the 
elevation  of  the  art  of  Genii-painting  to  a  higher 
plane.  Rising  above  the  jubilant  throng  we  recog- 
nise the  figures  of  Pan  and  Olympus,  of  whom 
Pompeii  has  yielded  us  two  fine  representations  ; 
with  frank  tenderness  the  youth  approaches  his  lover, 
sits  near  him  receiving  instruction  upon  the  flute,  or, 
as  in  the  marble  group  at  Naples,  listens  to  his  words 
of  affection.  One  picture  of  Pan  and  Olympus  pos- 
sessed a  pendant,  and  both  adorned  a  quite  ordinary 
house ;  the  latter  represents  the  Centaur  Chiron  in- 
structing the  youthful  Achilles  in  playing  the  lyre. 

And  this  external  similarity  of  form  is  not  the 
only  connecting  link  between  the  two  pictures  ; 
there  is  a  deeper  current  of  ethical  sentiment. 
Silenus  and  Dionysus,  Pan  and  Olympus,  Chiron 
and  Achilles  .  .  .  Socrates  and  Alcibiades — all 


48         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

illustrate  that  great  double  chord  of  love  and 
learning  which  re-echoes  through  the  ages  both  of 
myth  and  of  history. 

The  picture  of  "  Achilles  and  Chiron  "  is  said  to 
have  had  its  origin  in  an  Hellenic  marble  group 
which  actually  stood  in  Rome  opposite  to  that  of 
"  Pan  and  Olympus."  Now  it  is  true  that  the 
background  of  our  picture  (originally  at  Hercula- 
neum)  is  architecturally  conceived  as  the  wall  of 
some  interior,  before  which  the  two  figures  stand. 
But  that  it  could  be  a  mere  copy  is  out  of  the 
question.  The  idea  of  treating  anew  a  familiar 
theme  may  well  have  been  suggested  both  to  artist 
and  patron  by  the  celebrated  Roman  group,  and  the 
execution  may  also  have  been  influenced  by  re- 
miniscences of  that  group ;  but  the  figure  of 
Achilles  is  so  essentially  a  creation  direct  from  life, 
so  thorough  in  perception,  and  in  itself  such  an 
excellent  artistic  achievement,  that  it  could  not 
possibly  owe  its  origin  to  the  brush  of  any  cool, 
clever  copyist,  but  must  undoubtedly  be  the  work 
of  a  genuine  artist.  Farthest  removed  from  the 
spirit  of  Hellenic  art  are  those  who  attempt  to 
flatter  it  by  imitating  its  external  characteristics, 
when  it  is  only  artistic  feeling,  operating  from 
within,  that  could  ever  hope  to  accomplish  kindred 
work.  The  easy  pose,  the  graceful  attitude  of  the 
youth,  the  turn  of  the  head  and  the  soulful  gaze, 
tell  of  unbounded  affection  and  trust ;  they  suggest, 
and  are  themselves  suggested  by,  deep  feeling. 
That  gaze  alone  should  be  sufficient  to  dispose 
once  for  all  of  the  stupid  and  time-worn  assertion 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         49 

that    Hellenic    art    created    purely   physical,   and 
Christian  art  moral,  beauty. 

If  the  soul  be  not  in  the  body,  where  is  it  to  be 
found  ?  And  if  it  were  not  expressed  in  the  more 
refined  motions  of  the  limbs  and  features,  how  should 
we  know  that  our  fellow-men  were  not  all  soulless 
automata  ?  But  the  soul  is  more  than  mere  intellect, 
or  intellectual  expression.  It  is,  beyond  all,  that 
which  gives  form,  and  an  attractive,  well-propor- 
tioned, and  therefore  beautiful  figure,  in  its  graceful 
freedom  of  movement,  indicates  a  soul  full  of  power 
and  worth,  even  though  it  may  not  be  adapted  to 
all  relations  of  life  ;  such  a  form,  however,  is  the 
type  and  the  measure  of  beauty.  The  only 
element  of  truth  in  the  contention  we  have  men- 
tioned is,  that  Christian  art  was  compelled  to  de- 
vote a  one-sided  attention  to  the  soul,  because  it 
had  been  taught  to  regard  the  body  as  an  abomi- 
nation, and  thus  a  soul  torn  by  sorrow,  a  body 
shattered  by  pain,  became  its  fixed  criterion  of 
beauty.  Hellenism  never  recognised  this  unnatural 
and  profane  distinction,  and  the  great  artists  of  the 
Renaissance,  taking  a  lofty  standpoint,  declined  to 
acknowledge  it — to  our  salvation.  But  the  world 
is  still  haunted  by  the  mediaeval  delusion  that  beauty 
of  form  is  but  superficial,  and  ugliness  alone  is  real ; 
a  self-passed  encomium  on  our  chaotic,  anti-cosmic 
want  of  culture. 

In  divers  other  fashions  is  the  great  theme  of 
passion,  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  the  ancient  world, 
celebrated  in  Pompeian  paintings.  First  we  have 


So         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

Zeus  seated  upon  Mount  Ida,  Hera  approaching 
him  5  the  picture  is  unfortunately  so  mutilated, 
that  the  figure  of  Hera  alone  testifies  to  the  life 
and  spirit  of  the  whole.  Then  we  see  the  God  in 
the  form  of  an  eagle  perched  upon  a  tree,  above 
the  beautiful  sleeping  Ganymede  ;  or  in  the  likeness 
of  a  swan  caressed  by  Leda.  As  a  pendant  to  the 
Ganymede,  we  see  another  comely  sleeper,  Endy- 
mion,  approached  by  crescent-crowned  Artemis, 
descending  from  the  mountains  ;  a  theme  frequently 
repeated.  Here  Apollo  pursues  the  flying  Daphne, 
or  is  seated  beside  his  favourite  Cyparissus,  who 
laments  his  wounded  stag.  Aphrodite  stands  dis- 
consolate behind  the  bleeding  Adonis,  whose  arm 
is  supported  by  Cupids,  who  are  elsewhere  seen 
binding  up  with  lamentations  his  wounded  thigh. 
The  inward  anguish,  the  consciousness  of  ap- 
proaching death,  the  growing  torpor  induced  by 
loss  of  blood,  and  the  innate  tender  sensibility  of 
the  beautiful  youth  find  living  expression  in  his 
features.  The  Goddess  who  here  sued  in  vain  we 
find  elsewhere  wooed  by  the  caresses  of  Ares, 
whom  Cupids  are  despoiling  of  his  weapons.  In 
the  "  House  of  Adonis "  there  was  yet  another 
picture  expressly  representing  Adonis  as  a  her- 
maphrodite, with  Aphrodite  and  her  retinue  in  the 
act  of  performing  his  toilet.  His  coy  repugnance 
to  the  advances  of  the  Goddess  thus  rested  on  a 
deeper  foundation,  at  once  mystic  and  biological. 
And  this  picture  of  the  hermaphrodite  Adonis  is 
in  intimate  connection  with  another  myth  which 
was  especially  dear  to  the  Pornpeian — that  of  Nar- 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         51 

cissus.  This  warning,  and  at  the  same  time  ethi- 
cally significant,  legend  of  the  youth  who,  deaf  to 
all  wooing,  and  fascinated  by  his  own  beauty,  pined 
away  in  self-adoration,  and  was  turned  into  a 
flower — this  admonition  against  the  exclusion  of 
fertile  and  glowing  love,  and  also  loftiest  tribute  to 
the  supremacy  of  beauty  over  the  senses,  this  in- 
tensely Greek  conception  of  Life,  which  is  so 
inexhaustible — we  find  it  again  and  again  mate- 
rialised upon  Pompeian  walls ;  rendered  in  one 
place  with  consummate  art,  and  in  another  without 
the  slightest  aesthetic  pretensions  :  in  the  homes  of 
rich  and  poor  alike :  from  the  hand  both  of  the 
artist  and  of  the  mere  mechanic.  There  sits  the 
beauteous  youth  upon  the  rocky  shore,  gazing 
down  at  his  own  reflection,  or  leaning  upon  a  stafl, 
amid  clumps  of  dead-green  rushes,  he  stoops  with 
longing  gaze  over  the  water.  Occasionally  from 
behind  the  rocks  there  peeps  the  nymph  Echo,  who, 
shunned  by  Narcissus,  pursued  him  with  vain  ap- 
peals, and  was  mocked  by  the  echo  of  her  own 
voice — as  he  by  his  own  reflection.  Or  perchance 
a  votive  column,  entwined  with  a  bright  riband, 
and  decked  with  pious  offerings,  intensifies  the  im- 
pression of  loneliness — possibly  because  it  reminds 
the  modern  observer  of  the  silent,  crumbling  em- 
bellishments of  Roman  villas  or  ancient  castles. 
He  is  filled  with  infinite  sorrow  for  a  world  that  is 
dead,  and  at  the  same  time  with  the  conviction  that 
beauty  of  form  is  the  loftiest  and  most  comprehen- 
sive ideal,  the  true  cosmic  life-object  of  both  Man 
and  Nature,  like  Eternity — so  near,  and  yet  so  far. 


52        POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

To  the  Pompeian  the  Hellenic  world  was  very 
much  alive.  This  is  proved,  quite  apart  from  those 
subjects  taken  from  sacred  mythology,  by  the 
numerous  representations  found  on  Pompeian  walls 
of  scenes  out  of  the  great  heroic  age. 

The  Hellenic  legendary  cycle  reached  the  Latins 
at  an  early  date  by  means  of  the  trade  in  Greek 
vases.  The  pottery  of  Apulia  and  Campania  re- 
peated and  diffused  Hellenic  designs,  and  schooled 
the  Latin  idea  to  the  free  flow  of  line  characteristic 
of  Hellenic  conceptions.  The  clumsy  cinerary 
urns  of  the  Etruscans  show  how  conversant  even 
they  had  become  with  the  story  of  the  heroes. 
Later  on,  the  influence  of  imported  Greek  poetry 
deepened  the  impression  already  created,  and  thus 
we  have  small  cause  for  wonder  that  in  a  country 
so  strongly  Hellenised  as  Campania  the  deeds  of 
the  heroic  age  were  sufficiently  familiar  to  find  a 
place  among  the  subjects  of  mural  decorations. 
We  encounter  Hercules  as  a  child  strangling  the 
serpents,  bringing  the  Erymanthian  boar  to  the 
cowardly  Eurystheus,  or  standing  beside  Deianira 
and  threatening  with  his  club  the  Centaur  Nessus, 
who  vehemently  protests  his  innocence.  Orpheus 
sings  his  lays  in  the  mountains,  and  the  wild  beasts 
listen,  spell-bound.  Theseus  stands  beside  the  slain 
bull-headed  Minotaur,  and  the  released  victims  kiss 
his  hand — a  picture  often  repeated  ;  or  else  he  is 
finding  his  father's  sword.  Hermes  puts  Argus, 
the  watcher  of  lo,  to  sleep  (at  Herculaneum)  ;  lo 
lands  in  Egypt,  received  by  Isis.  Perseus  frees 
Andromeda.  Medea  meditates  the  murder  of  her 


Photo.  Brogi 


Naples,  Museo  Nazionale 


ARES    AND    APHRODITE 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         53 

children,  who  are  playing  beside  her,  or  broods 
over  her  lot,  the  sword  pressed  to  her  breast,  while 
her  features  are  distorted  by  conflicting  emotions 
— gnawing  resentment,  dark  forebodings  of  the 
crime  which  obtrudes  its  horrid  suggestion  upon 
her,  and  terror  at  her  own  dread  resolve.  We 
see  the  torment  of  Ixion,  the  cruel  punishment 
of  Dirce,  and  the  fate  of  Icarus.  Actaeon  is  torn 
to  pieces,  Pasiphae  with  Daedalus  admires  the  bull, 
and  Leda  shows  Tyndareus  a  nest  with  the  infant 
children  of  Zeus. 

But  above  all  the  Iliad,  with  its  related  sagas, 
bears  evidence  of  the  personal  interest  taken  by  the 
Pompeians  in  the  Hellenic  past.  One  of  their 
finest  paintings  depicts  the  departure  of  Chryseis 
from  the  tent  of  Agamemnon.  The  latter  sits  with 
averted  countenance,  while  the  maiden's  gaze  is 
fixed  on  the  distance,  and  her  cheeks  reflect  the 
inward  anguish  aroused  by  the  cruel  necessity  of 
deciding  between  the  conflicting  claims  of  her 
lover  and  the  father  to  whose  arms  the  ship  now 
waiting  at  the  shore  is  to  bear  her.  Had  nothing 
else  been  preserved  to  us  of  Greek  painting  but  the 
charming  flush  of  modesty  mantling  this  maiden's 
cheeks,  and  the  head  of  Achilles  in  the  picture  of 
Chiron,  we  should  still  possess  sufficient  evidence 
of  the  loftiness  of  its  spiritual  conceptions. 

Another  picture,  once  a  companion  work  to  the 
last  in  the  so-called  "  House  of  the  Tragic  Poet," 
shows  Briseis  carried  away  from  Achilles.  Then 
we  have  a  fragment  apparently  representing  Patro- 
clus  beseeching  Achilles  for  permission  to  fight : 


54         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

the  only  portion  completely  preserved  is  the  seated 
figure  of  the  latter,  but  the  expression  of  those 
noble  features,  surveying  the  world  with  a  gaze  of 
such  profound  penetration,  endows  the  picture  with 
a  high  degree  of  merit.  Once  more  we  encounter 
Achilles,  as  he  is  being  recognised  by  Ulysses  in 
female  attire  in  the  company  of  Deidameia  5  the 
identity  of  the  youthful  hero  is  indicated  by  the 
figures  of  himself  and  Chiron  upon  the  shield  which 
he  has  grasped.  We  see  Ulysses  himself,  unrecog- 
nised by  Penelope,  giving  the  latter  news  of  her 
missing  spouse.  In  conclusion,  since  it  is  impos- 
sible to  enumerate  all,  only  the  legend  of  Orestes 
need  be  mentioned.  Here  we  have  Iphigenia 
sacrificed  and  rescued,  Orestes  recognised  by  Elec- 
tra,  Orestes  and  Pylades  in  the  presence  of  Thoas, 
whose  hands  are  rendered  with  intelligence  and 
refinement.  In  this  picture  one  of  the  youths, 
with  woebegone,  downcast  gaze,  resigns  himself 
to  the  death  that  will  bring  him  deliverance  ;  while 
his  companion,  daring  and  indomitable,  still  clings 
to  the  hope  of  saving  both  himself  and  his  friend. 

And  the  great  Mosaic  of  Alexander  shows  not  only 
how  the  prehistoric  myths  of  Hellas  had  established 
a  firm  hold  upon  Pompeian  sentiment,  but  also 
that  the  latter  brilliant  episodes  of  her  history  were 
regarded  by  the  Pompeians  with  sympathy  and 
veneration.  Like  that  momentous  day,  big  with 
the  fate  of  nations,  when  the  Macedonian  decided 
the  issue  of  the  heroic  struggle  carried  on  for  ages 
against  the  Persian  yoke  by  the  Greeks  whom -he 
had  brought  under  his  sway,  and  diffused  Hellenic 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         55 

culture  throughout  the  barbarian  world  ;  to  the 
ruin  of  Hellenism  itself — for  its  life-blood  ebbed 
away  with  the  glories  of  its  heirs  and  successors, 
far  from  the  heart  of  its  parent  land,  amidst  the 
court  ceremonial  of  lesser  nations — but  to  the  inex- 
haustible blessing  and  advantage  of  the  rest  of 
humanity. 

The  art  which  confers  such  especial  value  upon 
Pompeii  in  the  eyes  of  our  own  age  is  that  of  her 
mural  paintings.  There,  on  the  spot  that  gave  them 
birth,  and  with  which  their  existence  is  almost  inex- 
tricably interwoven,  they  provide  ocular  demonstra- 
tion of  that  which  was  near  and  dear  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Pompeians.  Nevertheless  this  reflection  of  their 
artistic  sense  would  be  incomplete  apart  from  the 
plastic  creations  which  found  their  home  at  Pompeii. 
These,  it  is  true,  unlike  the  wall-paintings,  are 
movable,  and  there  can  thus  be  no  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  the  origin  of  any  single  "  find  "  was  in 
any  way  connected  with  the  spot  on  which  it  may 
have  been  discovered  ;  it  would  be  as  easy  to  bring 
it  thither  as  it  has  been  to  remove  it.  Neverthe- 
less, collectively,  this  treasure-trove  proves  wherein 
the  pleasures  of  Pompeii  consisted,  and  it  is  in  a 
people's  pleasures  that  its  essential  character  is  re- 
vealed. 

The  works  of  plastic  art  that  have  come  to  light 
at  Pompeii  are  almost  all  of  small  dimensions.  The 
beautiful  life-size  bronzes  of  "  Mercury  Reposing," 
the  "  Drunken  Faun,"  and  the  "  Runners,"  and 
also  the  marble  group  of  <c  Orestes  and  Electra," 


56         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

were  received  by  the  Museo  Borbonico  from  Her- 
culaneum — a  striking  demonstration  of  the  wealth 
of  that  city  in  artistic  treasures. 

Now  it  is  a  fact  that  the  Pompeians  themselves 
undertook  excavations  amidst  the  ruins  of  their 
shattered  city  ;  but  that  which  each  citizen  endea- 
voured to  recover,  by  forcing  an  entrance  into  his 
late  abode,  included  in  most  cases  only  money, 
jewellery,  and  the  smaller  of  his  sacred  images. 
Large  and  weighty  statuary  must  have  been  left  on 
the  spot  where  it  was  found — if  found  at  all — for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  homeless  owners  could  not 
take  it  with  them  upon  their  wanderings.  The 
fact  that  none  has  been  found  among  the  dlbris  is 
sufficient  proof  of  its  absence  from  living  Pompeii  ; 
and,  apart  from  the  statues  of  the  Gods  in  their 
temples,  sculpture  is  represented  as  a  matter  of  fact 
only  by  a  quantity  of  small  works. 

Pompeii  was  quite  a  small  town,  whose  limited 
funds  were  unequal  to  the  purchase  of  important 
works  of  art,  but  whose  Hellenistic  feeling,  ennobled 
by  genuine  Hellenic  influence,  nevertheless  yearned 
for  that  communion  with  the  creations  of  art  which 
constituted  its  greatest  pleasure  in  life.  It  is  by 
reason  of  this  modest  but  refined  artistic  sentiment, 
which  would  not  dispense  with  decorative  ornament, 
even  in  the  case  of  the  humblest  kitchen  hearth,  that 
we  who  are  rich  in  the  consciousness  of  living  are 
constrained  to  turn  our  gaze  again  and  again  on  life- 
less, ruined  Pompeii  ;  for  she  indicates  to  us  a  true, 
perfect,  and  harmonious  conception  of  Life,  to 
which  we  in  our  turn  might  gladly  aspire. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          57 

In  view  of  the  importance  of  ancestor-worship  in 
all  systems  of  civilisation  that  have  been  uninter- 
rupted in  their  development,  the  first  to  be  con- 
sidered among  the  sculptures  of  Pompeii  are  the  por- 
trait busts.  These  were  placed  by  the  ancients  on 
the  hearth  in  the  Atrium,  in  lasting  remembrance  ; 
just  as  the  clumsy  cinerary  urns,  with  the  honoured 
ashes  of  the  dead,  had  stood  ages  before.  But  in  this 
later  age  the  death  of  the  recipient  was  by  no  means 
indispensable  to  the  bestowal  of  this  honour.  In 
the  same  manner  that  the  Genius  of  the  master  of 
the  house  was  frequently  depicted,  in  the  bodily  like- 
ness of  the  latter,  above  the  serpents  of  the  domestic 
altar  and  between  the  protecting  Lares,  so,  among 
others,  the  freedman  of  L.  Caecilius  Jucundus 
erected  his  bronze  bust,  dedicated  to  his  master's 
Genius,  in  the  Atrium  of  the  latter's  house.  The 
homely  but  lifelike  bust  figures  as  a  Herma  with 
phallic  ornaments,  an  excellent  work,  but  quite  in 
the  Roman  spirit  of  purely  technical  finish,  similar 
to  that  attained  at  a  very  early  period  in  the  classic 
land  of  veneration  for  the  dead — Egypt.  An  ideal- 
ised portrait,  bolder  in  conception,  would  never 
have  suited  this  businesslike  banker,  whose  busi- 
ness accounts  have  survived  to  this  day  ! 

The  place  occupied  in  private  dwellings  by  the 
busts  of  the  owner  and  his  forefathers  was  filled  in 
the  public  buildings,  at  the  same  period,  by  the 
busts  of  Emperors.  Pompeii  possessed  its  priest- 
hood of  the  Augustales,  and  in  the  Temple  of  the 
"divine"  Augustus  there  also  stood  the  busts  of 
the  Imperial  Octavia  and  Marcellus.  Busts  such 


58         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

as  those  of  Drusus  or  even  Caligula  further  de- 
monstrated the  veneration  outwardly  expressed  for 
the  Imperial  house,  and  in  later  years  Vespasian, 
too,  received  the  honour  of  an  altar.  Local  cele- 
brities also,  like  Holconius  Rufus  and  the  public 
benefactress  Eumachia,  were  awarded  stately  monu- 
ments, even  though  no  Pompeian  family  received 
so  brilliant  a  recognition  as  that  accorded  to  the 
Balbi  of  Herculaneum,  who  are  perpetuated,  both 
man  and  wife,  life-size  in  bronze. 

Veneration  for  the  busts  of  celebrated  personages, 
the  noblest  form  of  ancestor-worship,  springs  from 
higher  motives.  Raised,  as  such  men  are,  above 
the  coarse,  practical  realism  of  the  present,  their 
portraits  also  are  nobler  in  feature,  superior  in  type, 
more  idealised  in  conception.  It  is  true  that  Pom- 
peii possessed  no  work  of  art  equal  to  the  marvel- 
lous and  unique  head  of  Homer  from  Herculaneum, 
that  gem  amongst  busts  ;  but  even  the  minor  like- 
nesses of  heroes,  poets,  and  philosophers  which  deco- 
rated the  Tablinum  or  Peristyle  of  the  houses 
and  the  corridors  of  the  Theatre  are  eloquent  of 
that  wide  intellectual  world  to  which  the  Pompeian 
felt  the  microcosm  of  his  daily  life  to  be  co- 
ordinated. 

Of  the  few  larger  statues  of  divinities,  among 
which  may  be  enumerated  those  of  Venus  Genetrix, 
foundress  of  the  Julian  dynasty,  of  Apollo,  and  the 
bust  of  Jupiter,  a  statue  of  Artemis  is  especially 
remarkable  as  indicating  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Her 
draperies  are  plaited  into  a  multiplicity  of  folds, 
and  her  countenance  wears  the  artificially  superior 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         59 

smile  which  marks  the  divinities  of  the  JEgina 
marbles.  These,  as  every  budding  sculptor  knows, 
are  the  signs  of  immaturity,  and  the  Artemis  might 
have  passed  for  an  ancient  work,  if  the  raised  heel 
of  the  foot  in  motion  did  not  display  the  signs  of 
a  freer  and  later  development.  This  work,  there- 
fore, instead  of  being  itself  primitive  in  execution, 
must  be  classed  as  an  imitation  of  the  archaic  and 
antique,  and  testifies  to  the  movement  of  that 
period  (analogous  to  the  Pre-Raphaelitism  and  cult 
of  the  "  Primtttfs "  of  our  own)  in  favour  of 
abandoning  the  over-wrought  feverishness  of  con- 
temporary artistic  activity  for  the  placid,  and  even 
stiff,  forms  of  the  primitive  school — a  course  which 
indeed  presents  far  fewer  difficulties  than  would  be 
encountered  in  forcibly  moulding  Chaos  into  fresh 
cosmic  forms.  The  Alexandrian-Roman,  Greco- 
Roman  period  was  past,  and  the  "  cultured " 
Pompeian  was  left  to  smile  at  the  pretentious 
works  of  courtly  art-cliques — and  to  prefer  even 
a  forgery  of  an  earlier,  purer  style,  like  that  Etrus- 
can from  whose  possession  that  same  production, 
in  a  second  edition,  has  come  down  to  our  own 
times.  Truly  it  must  have  been  a  commodity 
much  in  demand. 

This  statue  of  Artemis  is  about  half  life-size. 
Most  of  the  plastic  works  discovered  at  Pompeii 
are  of  yet  smallei — indeed,  even  miniature — pro- 
portions, and  are  as  a  rule  adapted  also  to  some 
domestic  purpose.  But  all,  even  the  smallest,  arc 
true  works  of  art.  Of  these  is  the  "  Faun  "  who 


60         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

once  danced — all  ecstasy — with  Bacchanalian  en- 
thusiasm in  the  Atrium  of  the  house  to  which  his 
discovery  gave  its  name.  The  superhuman  exalta- 
tion, the  mystery  of  intoxication,  the  bursting  of 
the  slender  bonds  of  earth,  are  rendered  in  masterly 
fashion,  and  every  muscle  quivers  with  the  beauty 
of  motion.  Conceived,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the 
spirit,  not  of  Bacchus,  but  of  Apollo,  is  another 
Pompeian  work  in  bronze  ;  about  one-third  life- 
size,  yet  not  too  small  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
finest  creations  of  Greek  art — a  gem  of  refinement, 
and  instinct  with  life — the  so-called  "  Narcissus." 

The  idle  steps  of  the  youth,  about  whose  shoulder 
and  left  wrist  a  goat-skin  is  twined,  have  been  sud- 
denly arrested.  His  gaze  is  bent  on  the  ground, 
but  his  thoughts  are  elsewhere.  He  is  listening  to 
a  distant  sound,  for  the  involuntary  action  of  the 
index  finger  shows  that  his  attention  is  directed 
towards  the  right,  while  the  inclination  of  the  head 
in  the  same  direction  indicates  that  the  ear  is  en- 
deavouring to  catch  a  distinct  impression  of  the 
sound.  From  his  almost  imperceptible  smile  it  is 
evident  that  he  imagines  himself  to  have  guessed 
the  identity  of  the  person  from  whom  it  proceeds. 

Is  it  indeed  Narcissus  whom  we  have  here,  listen- 
ing to  the  voice  of  the  nymph  Echo,  whom  he  has 
hitherto  avoided  ?  or  a  young  Faun  from  the  retinue 
of  Dionysus,  but  without  the  customary  pointed 
ears,  who  hears  a  voice  calling  him  ?  Or  is  it  the 
God  himself,  his  curling  locks  entwined  with  grapes, 
and  without  his  panther-skin  ?  These  conjectures 
are  idle,  in  comparison  with  the  rich  vitality  that  in- 


Photo.  AHnari 

DANCING    FAUN 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         61 

spires  the  form,  the  easy  grace  of  its  pose,  the 
finely  indicated  tension  of  the  limbs,  suddenly 
arrested  in  their  motion,  the  speaking  attitude  of 
head  and  hand,  the  harmonious  and  perfect  model- 
ling of  the  figure  in  every  single  limb,  the  skin 
instinct  with  life.  But  this  figure  has  yet  other 
lessons  to  teach  us ;  if  we  regard  it,  whether  it  be 
Narcissus  or  Dionysus,  in  the  light  of  a  creed  of 
Life.  This  statuette,  indeed,  is  only  one  out  of 
innumerable  similar  products  of  Greek  art ;  but 
any  blossom  on  a  bough  may  teach  us  to  know  the 
entire  tree,  and  by  the  fact  that  the  "  Narcissus  " 
was  discovered  in  one  of  the  small  houses  of  Pom- 
peii we  can  gauge  the  importance  and  profundity 
of  the  theory  of  Life  that  it  suggests,  This  theory 
was  not  merely  the  attribute  of  a  few  superior 
persons,  but  extended  downwards  to  those  social 
strata  where  existence  was  spent  in  the  performance 
of  the  most  trivial  tasks.  There  could  be  here 
neither  leisure  nor  inclination  for  the  cultivation  of 
refined  sensibilities,  had  not  this  limited  field  itself 
fostered  every  germ  of  innate  refinement  that  the 
hand  of  chance  scattered  upon  it.  It  is  just  such 
perfection  of  detail,  in  conjunction  with  equal  har- 
mony of  the  entire  work,  that  is  the  hall-mark  of 
true  culture  and  a  lofty  human  ideal. 

No  one  knows  who  was  the  creator  of  this  noble 
work  ;  but  whether  it  be  a  Greek  original  or  merely 
a  reduced  copy  of  Latin  origin,  assuredly  the 
spirit  of  Praxiteles  dwells  within  it.  It  displays  the 
highest  mastery  of  technique  ;  but  this  perfection  is 
merely  the  willing  tool  of  a  genius  who  depended 


62          POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

not,  like  smaller  spirits,  on  precept  and  example. 
Rather  do  all  the  minor  details  blend  together  to 
produce  the  true  greatness  of  harmonious  proportion 
and  beauty  of  form.  The  subjective  type  of  the 
face,  however,  makes  it  hardly  probable  that  the 
author  of  this  work  can  have  been  Praxiteles.  The 
slender  proportions,  too,  suggest  a  later  period  ;  but 
the  whole  figure  is  too  instinct  with  the  warmth  of 
life  to  be  the  work  of  Lysippus. 

Beauty  of  form  !  The  fairest  of  all  earthly 
forms  is  that  of  Man — in  spite  of  horse,  butterfly, 
or  any  creature  of  the  sea.  It  is  only  in  Man  that 
a  slender  supple  frame  is  conjoined  with  rounded 
fulness  of  the  separate  limbs — power  in  action 
with  softness  in  rest.  It  is  only  in  Man  that  the 
skin  is  not  a  mere  covering  of  the  body,  but  the 
most  refined  and  truest  of  its  forms.  It  is  only  in 
Man  that  the  hair  is  not  solely  a  useful  covering, 
but  also  lends  artistic  ornament  in  the  form  of  curls, 
eyebrows,  and  eyelashes.  The  most  active  and 
the  superior  of  all  created  beings  is  at  the  same  time 
the  most  intellectual  and  morally  beautiful ;  a  proof 
that,  together  with  keenness  of  intellect,  beauty  of 
form  is  the  expression  of  inward  viral  force  at  its 
highest  development,  and  a  direct  indication  of 
Nature's  aim  and  of  her  future.  And,  again,  the 
perfection  of  human  beauty  is  typified  by  Youth  in 
its  flower. 

Owing  to  race-conditions,  not  sufficiently  taken 
into  account  at  the  present  day,  the  Hellenic  people, 
from  an  aesthetic  point  of  view,  tended  to  equalise 
the  distinctions  of  sex.  All  their  statues  teach — 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         63 

and  ethnological  observers  are  obtaining  renewed 
proof  in  modern  Greece — that  Hellenic  maidens 
are  more  robust,  and  Hellenic  youths  more  slender 
in  build,  than  their  contemporaries  of  the  same  age 
and  sex.  With  the  Greeks  the  profound  mystic 
idea  of  Androgyny  found  its  expression,  both  as  an 
abstract  idea  and  in  concrete  form,  in  their  statues 
— in  the  figures  of  Amazons  as  well  as  those  pro- 
fessedly hermaphroditic  in  character,  but  particularly 
in  those  representing  tyrifioiy  or  youths  just  arrived 
at  man's  estate. 

It  is  precisely  in  the  figures  of  these  youths  of 
eighteen  years  and  upwards  that  the  balance  of  the 
contrasting  forms  attains  perfection  This  type 
combines  the  stern  power  of  the  purely  masculine 
with  the  soft  grace  of  the  feminine — as  exemplified 
in  the  "  Narcissus."  He  has  neither  the  swelling 
shoulders  of  the  male,  nor  the  prominent  hips  of  the 
female.  The  body  is  well  rounded,  yet  slender  ; 
the  breast  and  belly  are  symmetrically  arched ; 
the  back  and  loins  are  noble  in  their  breadth  of  line. 
The  arms  and  legs  are  powerfully  moulded,  but 
without  the  excessive  development  of  the  athlete, 
and  the  whole  is  contained  ana  defined  by  the  firm 
and  supple  skin.  Thus  did  Anacreon  describe  his 
Bathyllus,  and  such  is  the  outward  similitude  of  the 
"Discobulus"  of  Alcamenes,  of  the  "Faun"  of 
Praxiteles,  and  of  all  the  best  statues  of  Dionysus 
and  Apollo  (in  which  company  "  he  of  Belvedere  " 
has  no  place).  Is  it  possible  to  translate  the  God- 
head into  human  shape  in  worthier  fashion  than  by 
forms  of  faultless  beauty — at  once  its  own  true 


64         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

creation  and  its  closest  affinity  ?  The  "  Christ " 
of  Michelangelo,  too,  in  S.  Maria  sopra  Minerva, 
is  not  merely  the  artist's  most  finished  work,  but 
presents  at  the  same  time  that  noble  prophetic  idea 
of  Divinity — Christ  as  the  Olympian  and  Ruler  of 
the  Third  Kingdom. 

It  is  not  without  reason  that  an  arbitrary  name 
has  connected  the  statue  of  the  Pompeian  youth 
with  the  legend  of  Narcissus,  in  which  the  idea  of 
beauty  has  found  exhaustive  expression.  For  the 
human  form  is  the  true  standard  and  pattern  of  all 
beauty,  and  beauty  has  no  other  aims  than  those  of 
joy  and  love.  Beauty  does  not  consist  in  smooth, 
mirror-like  polish,  but  is  an  inward  plastic  force— 
the  fulness  of  life  revealed  in  form.  It  is  the 
language  of  universal  joy,  which  awakens  and 
warms  and  enriches  the  whole  range  of  human 
feeling — the  true  Divine  force,  that  would  fain 
compel  Man  to  imitation. 

The  religious  and  ethical  value  of  the  human  form 
was  well  known  to  the  Greeks,  nor  was  it  ever 
allowed  to  lapse  into  oblivion  by  any  offshoot  of 
Hellenic  culture  ;  the  entire  range  of  Pompeian  art 
goes  to  prove  this.  In  this  sense  the  "  Narcissus," 
upon  which  universal  praise  has  not  been  lavished 
in  vain,  is  in  truth  the  Spirit  of  Pompeii,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Antique  World,  the  Spirit  of  the  gracious 
Earth. 

The  spirit  of  Hellenised  Pompeian  art,  in  its 
freshness  and  innocence,  desired  to  confer  all  pos- 
sible beauty  and  brightness  on  the  world  are  and  it* 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         65 

This  is  shown  in  its  mural  decorations,  and  above 
all  in  the  animated  designs  v/ith  which  it  enriched 
small  articles  of  utility.  Bestowing  our  close  atten- 
tion upon  the  whole  scale  of  such  objects,  from 
those  employed  in  religious  offices  to  those  in 
everyday  use,  we  feel  that  even  upon  the  lowest 
levels  the  minor  plastic  arts  were  no  mere  idle 
sport,  but  aimed  at  endowing  inanimate  objects 
with  the  animation  of  Nature,  and  were  in  them- 
selves a  continuous  education  of  the  senses  of  sight 
and  touch.  Not  that  the  artistic  craftsman  copied 
Nature  exactly ;  he  only  transformed  her  meaner 
and  more  casual  forms  into  the  image  of  those  that 
were  loftier  and  more  essential,  and  so  revealed  to 
men  the  silent  inner  movement  of  inflexible  masses, 
thereby  impressing  even  the  dullest  perception  with 
the  sense  of  all-pervading  Life.  When  the  three 
feet  of  the  holy-water  holder  in  the  Pompeian 
Temple  of  Isis  are  transformed  into  ithyphallic 
Satyrs,  whose  hands,  outstretched  as  though  warding 
off  approach,  intensify  the  characteristic  attitude, 
the  first  intention  was  of  course  to  convey  a  "  Procul 
estote  profanae  !"  in  the  spirit  of  the  Isis-Mother's 
worship ;  still,  the  dynamics  of  the  slender  bodies 
harmonise  completely  with  the  statics  of  the  sup- 
porting pillars — the  latter  become  animated,  while 
the  former  are  tranquiihseci.  When  the  light  upper 
columns  of  the  Erechtheum  took  upon  them  the 
fair  virgin  forms  of  the  Caryatides,  it  was  because 
Art,  just  as  in  Pompeii,  sought  to  transform  the 
deathlike  motionlessness  of  such  architectural 
members.  Table  feet  in  the  form  of  griffins  or 

E 


66         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

lions,  or  in  the  guise  of  Silenus  with  lion's  claws, 
are  intended  to  accentuate  the  universal  relation- 
ship of  all  created  things,  and,  although  portrayed 
with  all  the  resources  of  the  highest  art,  are  never- 
theless only  manifestations  of  the  original  and 
fundamental  stage  of  intelligence.  To  all  appear- 
ance mere  sportive  ornament,  they  prove  and  con- 
firm ever  anew  the  fetish-worshipper's  theory  of 
Nature — thanks  to  which  man  has  attained  the 
oower  of  metamorphosing  a  block  of  stone  into  a 
Divine  image. 

A  particularly  charming  use  was  made  in  Pompeii 
of  the  many  running  and  gushing  springs.  Some- 
times a  simple  lion's  head  or  Satyr's  mask  gives 
vent  to  the  stream,  at  others  it  is  a  Faun  with  a 
wine-skin  ;  or  else  a  squat  Silenus  holds  aloft  a 
snake,  and  from  the  ring  thus  formed  the  water 
trickles ;  or  an  athletic  figure  laughingly  antici- 
pates the  incidence  of  the  falling  stream.  Or, 
again,  the  figure  is  that  of  a  youthful  Bacchus,  and 
from  his  ewer  gurgles  the  Dionysian  ancestor  of  all 
beverages — the  "divine  liquid"  of  the  sparkling 
spring. 

Less  immediately  connected  with  this  idea,  yet 
not  less  attractive,  are  the  figures  which  adorn  the 
lamps ;  such  as  that  of  the  Genius  turning  ss  he 
floats  through  the  air.  Also  the  chubby-cheeked 
Faun,  whose  mouth  forms  the  opening  for  the 
wick,  is  a  charmingly  quaint  rendering  of  a  goblin 
vomiting  flames.  There  is  scarcely  one  of  these 
lamps  that  has  not  at  least  some  picturesque  trifle 
stamped  upon  it.  The  lamp-holder  sometimes 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         67 

takes  the  form  of  a  pillar,  sometimes  of  a  gnarled 
tree,  beneath  which  a  drunken  Silenus  slumbers, 
right  in  the  shadow  of  its  branching  arms  ;  or  it 
may  be  a  Herma  whose  head  supports  the  lamp, 
or  the  wings  of  a  Sphinx  perform  that  office.  And 
not  only  objects  like  these,  which  have  not  been 
neglected  by  modern  artistic  industries,  nor  the 
toilet  implements,  obvious  subjects  for  decoration, 
but  even  the  tools  of  commercial  life  are  drawn 
within  the  magic  circle  of  Art,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
one-armed  balances,  whose  sliding  weight  is  no 
coarse  lump  of  metal,  but  at  the  very  least  an  acorn, 
or  a  finely  modelled  head  of  a  woman,  a  warrior, 
or  an  Emperor.  And  in  like  manner  there  is 
hardly  a  knob,  or  any  article  of  Pompeian  everyday 
life,  that  has  not  been  metamorphosed  into  a  plant; 
hardly  a  candelabrum  or  seat  whose  feet  do  not 
assume  the  forms  of  animal  life.  The  very  sign- 
post is  a  phallus,  and  tiny  double  Hermae  of 
Dionysus  and  Ariadne  stand  like  little  white  pillars 
in  the  gardens.  Every  line,  every  curve,  is  con- 
ceived and  adapted  as  a  constituent  part  of  some 
loftier  creation. 

So  consummate  a  sense  of  decorative  effect  is  a 
gratifying  proof  of  culture,  for  it  testifies  to  the 
harmony  of  that  conception  of  Life  which  recog- 
nises in  the  lowliest  causes  the  roots  of  the  loftiest 
manifestations,  and  the  seed  of  greatness  in  that 
which  is  outwardly  insignificant.  To  the  Pompeians 
Art  was  not  a  mere  parade,  readily  dispensed  with 
or  banished,  but  a  second  nature.  Every  object 
was  intended  and  caused  to  awaken  a  consciousness 


68        POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

of  pleasure.  Intellectual  and  sensual  life  were  per- 
meated and  elevated  each  by  the  other.  Ornament 
is  in  itself  no  criterion  of  the  value  of  possession, 
but  in  the  nobler  language  of  Art  betokens  the 
sway  of  mysterious  and  intimately  connected 
forces.  Once  a  mere  fetish,  next  a  delicate  tool  of 
Love's  magic,  it  finally  passes  into  the  service  of  a 
religion  which  acclaims  joyousness  as  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Deity.  It  is  true  that  this  is  not  a  faith 
that  wraps  itself  in  the  dignity  of  dogma,  and  con- 
signs its  recusants  to  the  flames  of  an  Auto-da-Fl^ 
but  an  unerring  sense  of  Life,  sparkling  like  joyous 
laughter  around  the  stern  reality  of  existence  ;  true 
also,  that  it  is  no  disingenuous  denial  of  humanity, 
but  an  unassailable  conviction  that  Man  can  only 
attain  his  legitimate  place  by  the  complete  physical 
and  spiritual,  sensual  and  intellectual,  joyous  and 
diligent  development  of  his  divine  mission  and 
origin. 

Our  own  artistic  industries  are  full  of  rich 
promise;  and  even  though  they  are  still  groping 
their  way,  and  occasionally  lose  their  balance,  still 
they  may  well  be  sowing  the  seed  of  an  abundant 
harvest.  The  art  of  Pompeii  was  the  fruit  of  a 
bright  conception  of  Life,  and  perchance  a  kernel 
of  that  Hellenic  fruit,  planted  in  our  soil,  may  be- 
come the  germ  of  a  vigorous  tree,  marking  the 
commencement  of  a  new  era — that  of  joyosness. 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         69 

nourished  and  preserved  by  that  last  dying  ray 
from  the  sun  of  Hellenic  art — the  little  city  of 
Pompeii. 

The  denizen  of  Pompeii  dwelt  thus  in  the  midst 
of  a  little  world  of  joyousness  and  art,  and  his  cares 
and  sorrows  were  at  least  not  rendered  more  acute 
by  intolerable  and  hideous  surroundings.  In  his 
home  his  sentiments  found  expansion,  and  when 
he  quitted  the  quiet  cloister  of  his  Peristyle  he 
returned  with  a  renewed  fund  of  glowing  energy 
to  the  teeming  life  without. 

The  life  of  a  community  has  two  organic  centres 
— religious,  in  the  sanctuaries  of  public  worship — 
economic,  in  the  public  market  (and  possibly  a 
third,  which  is  political,  the  residence  of  the  ruler). 
It  depends  entirely  upon  their  individual  history 
which  of  these  holds  the  predominance  5  whether 
they  are  separate  or  coincident,  or  whether,  owing 
to  the  growth  or  amalgamation  of  localities,  their 
number  is  multiplied,  and  thus  a  diversity  of 
neighbouring  centres,  each  self-seeking  and  jealous 
of  the  other,  comes  into  existence ;  either  as 
quartieri  or  sestieri  (as  in  Genoa),  or  communities 
pledged  to  the  protection  and  veneration  of  their 
patron  saint — a  social  and  psychological  force  that 
is  frequently  underrated. 

Pompeii  boasted  two  centres  of  this  description. 

Prominent  upon  the  seashore,  where  stood    a  fine 

Doric  temple  of  the  seventh  century  B.C.,  was  the 

ancient   Forum  Triangular  e.      The  small    P  alestra 

and  the  large  Hellenic  Theatre  (places  of    worship 


70         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

these,  too)  adjoined  its  beautiful  colonnade.  In  the 
immediate  neighbourhood  was  the  Temple  of  the 
smiling  Zeus  ueiX/^iocj  and  in  later  years  there  was 
established  here  the  shrine  of  Isis,  of  whose  wor- 
ship we  also  find  pictorial  representations — evidence 
of  Egyptian  influence.  A  covered  Theatre  is  close 
at  hand,  and  immediately  below  it  the  cloisters  of 
the  Gladiators'  Barracks  profane  the  dignity  of  the 
spot  and  the  serene  simplicity  of  the  building  itself. 
Perhaps  the  continual  sanding-up  of  the  bay  drove 
the  business  of  the  port  gradually  farther  away  in  a 
North-westerly  direction  ;  at  any  rate,  the  later 
centre  of  Pompeian  life,  the  Forum  Civile^  lay  near 
the  Porta  Marina.  Possibly  the  Market  may  have 
existed  here  from  ancient  times,  as  the  Doric  Temple 
had  done  in  the  locality  of  the  Forum  Triangulare  ; 
but  with  the  expansion  of  the  city  and  its  trade  all 
interests  at  last  converged  to  this  point.  A  later, 
two-storied  colonnade,  encircling  this  prototype  of 
the  Piazza  San  Marco,  connected  all  the  most  im- 
portant buildings  with  one  another.  In  the  Northern 
half  were  comprised  the  new  Temples  of  Jupiter, 
Apollo,  the  Emperor  Augustus  (and  at  no  great 
distance  the  Temple  of  Fortune);  in  the  Southern, 
the  triple  Municipal  Council-hall  (Tribunali),  with 
the  commercial  tribunal,  or  Basilica,  adjoining  it 
on  the  West,  and  the  Temple  of  Venus  behind  it. 
On  the  East  side,  the  "  Cloth-hall "  of  the  Priestess 
Eumachia,  and  the  Market-hall,  or  Macellum.  Far 
to  the  Eastward  was  yet  a  third  public  point,  con- 
necting the  Cattle  Market  and  the  Amphitheatre 
or  Circus  in  neighbourly  union.  This  latter  bar- 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY          71 

baric  Temple  of  Death,  that  repellent  substitute 
for  the  Theatre  of  the  Greeks,  shows  only  too 
plainly  the  unfavourable  nature  of  the  rugged  Latin 
soil  in  which  the  seeds  of  Hellenic  culture  had  here 
been  sown.  It  is  infinitely  to  the  credit  of  that 
Culture  that  it  succeeded  in  producing  such  a  fruit 
as  Pompeian  art,  even  though  it  was  naturally  un- 
able to  transform  the  race  itself.  That  the  sports  of 
the  Circus  were  essentially  an  endorsement  of  the 
growing  ascendency  of  the  Roman  spirit  is  proved 
by  its  position  on  the  confines  of  the  city,  and  also 
by  the  date  of  its  establishment  (about  80  B.C.), 
before  even  Rome  herself  possessed  a  permanent 
temple  of  human  sacrifice,  yet  later  than  the 
Triumph  of  Sulla  ;  and  was  it  not  in  neighbour- 
ing Capua  that  the  Romans  maintained  their  great 
gladiatorial  schools  ? 

That  combats  of  gladiators  constituted  a  popular 
amusement  in  Campania  earlier  than  in  Rome,  in 
spite  of  the  latter's  vicinity  and  the  allegiance  she 
owed  to  Etruscan  civilisation,  is  easily  explained 
by  the  great  wars,  both  civil  and  foreign,  which 
continuously  both  stimulated  and  gratified  the 
blood-thirst  of  the  Roman  character.  When  peace 
at  home  and  the  employment  of  mercenaries  in 
foreign  wars  had  taken  the  weapons  from  their 
hands,  the  desire  for  organised  combats — that  is 
to  say,  for  gladiatorial  displays — immediately  com- 
menced to  manifest  itself  among  the  Romans. 
The  undeniable  roughness  of  ancient  Greek  boxing 
was  child's-play  compared  with  these  Roman  human 
sacrifices ;  and  yet  even  that  sport  was  forbidden  by 


72         POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

the  laws  of  the  manliest  and  most  warlike  of  the 
Greek  nations,  the  Spartans.  There  can  be  no 
better  instance  of  the  extent  to  which  the  ideals  as 
well  as  the  national  sentiment  of  the  Latins  and 
Greeks  clash,  in  spite  of  apparent  practical  simi- 
larities. The  respective  values  of  the  two  civilisa- 
tions every  one  is  at  liberty  to  determine  according 
to  his  own  inclination. 

The  Temples  of  Pompeii,  with  the  exception 
of  the  very  ancient  Doric  building  in  the  Forum 
Triangulare,  are  Roman  in  style,  being  raised  on 
a  low  basement  storey  with  a  small  portico,  and  the 
whole  surrounded  by  a  colonnade — like  the  Temple 
of  Apollo.  The  column  or  pillar  is  the  charac- 
teristic keynote  of  Southern  architecture  ;  open 
spaces,  shady  and  yet  well  lighted,  are  necessary 
to  its  employment.  It  is  indispensable  not  only  to 
buildings  of  a  sacred  character,  but  also  to  ordinary 
dwellings.  In  Pompeii  every  house  possessed  its 
colonnade  :  it  is  then  only  natural  that  the  public 
places  and  halls  should  have  presented  a  serried 
array  of  columns,  and  that  they  were  a  feature 
even  of  those  resorts  which  the  antique  world  has 
stamped  as  peculiarly  its  own.  If  the  ancients  had 
temples,  we  have  churches  ;  if  they  had  basilicas 
and  curia,  we  have  town-halls  ;  their  theatre  has 
continued  at  least  to  our  own  times  a  brilliant 
existence  ;  but  our  civilisation  contains  nothing 
analogous  to  their  Therms.  The  Bath  was  in 
those  days  not  merely  a  means  of  removing  dirt, 
but  was  designed  for  the  general  cult  and  care  of 
the  body.  For  that  reason  the  Palestra  was  -in- 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         73 

dissolubly  connected  with  the  Bath — the  whole 
being  a  temple  of  nude  art,  and  in  every  case  a 
miniature  Olympia. 

Many  a  well-to-do  Pompeian  boasted  his  own 
elaborate  bath,  but  it  is  only  the  great  public 
institutions  that  possess  social  importance — these 
were  no  depressing  chambres  separles^  but  scenes  or 
unfettered  social  intercourse.  When  Pompeii  met 
her  fate  a  magnificent  Bath  was  actually  in  process 
of  building  in  the  Strada  di  Nola,  the  two  existing 
establishments  being  evidently  insufficient  for  the 
numbers  resorting  to  them.  One  of  the  latter,  the 
smaller,  lies  behind  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  close 
to  the  Forum,  and  easily  accessible  to  all  its  fre- 
quenters ;  the  older  building,  on  the  ancient  road 
to  Castellamare  di  Stabia,  was  also  not  far  distant 
from  the  centre  of  activity.  And  these  Baths 
offered  every  convenience  for  physical  culture. 
There  are  separate  apartments  for  men  and  women ; 
those  intended  for  the  latter  being  smaller  and 
plainer.  The  dressing-rooms;  the  tepid  bath  of 
the  Tepidarlum  with  its  large  basin  ;  the  dry  suda- 
tory  of  the  Gaidar  turn  with  its  hollow  floor,  through 
which  hot  steam  circulated  ;  the  round  cold  bath, 
or  Frlgidarium^  with  steps  leading  down  to  it;  and, 
close  by,  the  sanded  court — the  size  of  a  mere 
garden  plot  at  the  Baths  of  the  Forum,  of  quite 
imposing  dimensions  at  those  of  the  Strada  Stabiana, 
and  a  huge  arena  at  the  newest,  unfinished  Thermae 
— but  in  each  case  of  noble  design. 

Since    the    Bath    appealed    not    merely    to  the 
hygienic  instincts>  but  also  to  the  ethical  sentiment 


74        POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

of  the  ancients,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  build- 
ings devoted  to  the  purpose  should  be  artistically 
decorated  ;  but  with  graceful  refinement — not  with 
ponderous  magnificence.  Thus  in  one  of  the  men's 
baths  the  niches  for  depositing  clothes  are  separated 
by  athletic  figures  of  Atlas.  Thus,  too,  in  the 
Frigidarium  of  the  Terme  del  Foro,  beneath  the 
vaulting  there  runs  a  frieze  in  white  stucco  on  a 
red  ground,  representing  a  race  ;  upon  the  walls 
flowers  are  painted,  and  birds  flutter  amongst  the 
rushes,  as  though  the  place  were  in  the  open 
greenwood.  In  the  damper  apartments  pictures 
are  judiciously  replaced  by  stucco  reliefs,  and  we  find 
the  vaulting  of  the  vestibules,  dressing  and  bath 
rooms  adorned  with  charming  figures  of  Genii. 
The  perpendicular  portions  of  the  wall  display,  as  in 
the  private  houses,  architectural  designs,  which  are 
here  in  relief;  while  between  the  pillars,  garlands, 
and  trophies  we  encounter  Fauns,  or  a  Prometheus 
in  chains,  or  Ganymede  with  the  Olympian  Eagle. 
But  the  Palestra — once  the  scene  of  merriment 
and  the  arena  of  feats  of  strength,  now  but  a  quiet 
court — is  of  the  highest  charm.  The  sanded  floor 
is  there,  but  no  joyous  figures  now  animate  it,  as 
they  vie  one  with  the  other  at  putting  the  weight. 
The  altar  of  Hermes  still  stands  there,  but  the  image 
of  the  God  has  vanished,  and  were  it  still  in  its 
place  there  would  be  none  to  deck  it  with  garlands. 
The  anointing-chamber  now  hears  no  boasting  of 
triumphant  athletes,  and  in  the  swimming-bath  the 
splashing  and  the  laughter  are  stilled.  The  bright 
and  animated  paintings  upon  the  walls  are  fading 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY        75 

under  exposure  to  the  weather,  and  in  the  colon- 
nades the  dreamer  only  catches  a  ghostly  echo  of  that 
lively  camaraderie,  which  here  disported  itself  wisely, 
untrammelled  by  deceptive  clothing.  It  was  here 
that  the  body  was  developed,  and  together  with  it 
the  soul,  in  healthy  freedom  of  sentiment,  and  that 
fresh  spirit  of  earth  which  finds  its  affinity  in  the 
blue  sunlit  sky.  It  was  from  the  spirit  here  incul- 
cated that  the  ancient  world  derived  the  serenity  it 
displayed  in  living  and  dying.  He  who  had  spent  his 
life  thus — his  spiritual  personality  untrammelled,  his 
physical  beauty  cultivated  and  developed — quitted 
this  life  as  though  leaving  the  dinner-table  when  the 
meal  was  over.  u Stoicism"  is  an  inadequate  name 
for  this  spirit  of  the  ancients.  Although  some  tyrants 
may  have  quailed  at  the  prospect  of  dissolution,  the 
death  of  the  voluptuary  Petronius  shows  that  even 
such  late  votaries  of  Bacchanalian  revelry  knew  how 
to  die  with  dignity  :  how  much  more,  then,  might 
it  be  expected  of  the  great  majority,  whose  lives 
had  been  marked  by  no  such  excesses  ?  To  them 
the  fear  of  Death  was  unknown,  because  they  had 
never  been  afraid  of  Life.  And  when  the  bitterness 
of  existence  had  been  subdued  into  cheerfulness  by 
an  heroic  moderation  an  honoured  grave  awaited 
the  dead  without  the  gate. 

In  Life  the  Pompeian  was  his  own  master  ;  in 
Death  he  belonged  to  the  community.  When  his 
feet  no  longer  trod  the  familiar  path  homewards 
from  the  Theatre,  the  Forum,  or  the  Baths,  his 
resting-place  was  by  the  public  highroad.  With 


76        POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

awed  solemnity  were  the  dead  sequestered  from 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  living  ;  but  before  long 
the  living  themselves  invaded  their  quiet  solitudes. 
The  city  outgrew  her  walls,  and  the  bustling  life 
of  the  outside  world — the  traffic  with  the  green 
country  and  its  fields  and  plantations — passed  be- 
tween the  serried  ranks  of  graves.  There  stood  the 
monuments  of  notable  citizens,  the  stately  tombs 
of  the  wealthy,  the  family  sepulchres,  where  the 
urns  of  a  whole  generation  and  its  retainers  found 
a  resting-place  ;  while  immediately  above  ground 
appeared  those  memorial  stones  to  which  the 
ancients  gave  the  name  of  Cippus,  shaped  like  a 
human  head,  but  devoid  of  features — one  of  the 
most  primitive  forms  of  sculpture.  A  walled  court 
is  the  property  of  a  College  of  priests — the  modern 
Italian  arclconfraternita.  In  front  of  some  of  the 
graves  stands  a  semicircular  stone  bench  for  the  use 
of  surviving  relatives  ;  but  it  also  invites  the  wander- 
ing stranger  to  repose,  if  the  large  public  shelters 
should  happen  to  be  occupied.  And  these  tombs 
are  eloquent  of  that  living  tide  of  humanity  which 
ebbed  so  long  ago — of  the  offices  it  once  filled,  the 
honours  it  bore,  the  benefits  it  conferred.  It  is  re- 
corded in  relief  upon  one  seat  that  the  dead  man 
once  possessed  the  distinction  of  the  biselliurn^  or 
double  seat  of  honour,  at  the  Theatre  ;  a  vessel  with 
swelling  sails  is  perhaps  a  memento  of  bold  com- 
mercial venture;  an  inscription  by  Naevoleia  Tyche 
dedicates  the  grave  to  herself  and  her  freedmen,  and 
testifies  to  the  humane  spirit  prevailing  even  in 
a  slave-holding  "  times.  Among  ourselves,  indeed, 


POMPEII  AS  AjF'ART  -Cl-TY'  • 


77 


there  are  now  none  but  free  men,  who  may  do  as 
they  will  —  except  honestly  live  their  own  lives. 
And  yet  no  ghosts  of  famine-stricken  souls  rise  from 
Pompeian  tombs  to  rail  against  a  hard-hearted  world  ; 
the  Street  of  Tombs  without  the  gates  of  Pompeii 
is  no  standing  reproach,  but,  rather,  a  becoming 
finish  to  that  life  which  wrought  and  enjoyed  amidst 
cheerfulness  and  beauty  within  its  walls,  which 
added  to  the  treasures  of  Art  and  of  Life,  and 
piously  offered  them  upon  the  altar  of  the  Powers 
of  Nature. 

Deeply  as  we  commiserate  the  tragic  fate  of  the 
Pompeians  so  suddenly  annihilated,  we  can  still, 
with  the  egotism  of  the  living,  analyse  the  course 
of  events  which  terminated  in  the  utter  destruction 
of  Pompeii,  overwhelmed  by  oceans  of  ashes  and 
mountains  of  pumice-stone  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
first  century  of  our  era. 

Two  centuries  earlier  the  greater  portion  of  the 
treasures  of  Greek  art  still  remained  on  its  native 
soil  ;  but  very  shortly  after  that  date,  as  the  result 
of  great  forays  for  plunder  and  of  voyages  for  trad- 
ing purposes,  there  began  to  arrive  in  Italy  those 
Greek  sculptures  which  brought  with  them  the 
true  Hellenic  spirit,  and  therewith  speedily  fer- 
tilised Latin  life.  Manifested  in  Rome,  where 
Art  never  really  took  root,  merely  in  works  of 
superficial  brilliance,  Hellenism  inspired  the  art  of 
rugged,  but  characteristic,  Etruria  to  achievements 
of  a  more  pleasing  type  —  and  in  later  ages  the 
Renaissance  at  least  joined  hands  with  the  ancient 


,  AN  ART  CITY 


tradition  of  technique.  Hellenic  influence,  how- 
ever, was  most  beneficial  in  the  almost  purely 
Greek  district  of  Neapolis  Parthenopeia,  where  it 
had  already  long  operated,  and  which  thus  became 
the  field  of  all  the  progress  made  by  civilisation 
during  the  last  century  before  Christ. 

Had  Pompeii  perished  then,  in  the  time  of 
Augustus,  we  could  have  formed  no  opinion  as  to 
whether  Hellenism,  at  all  events  on  the  spot 
where  it  had  once  taken  root  and  undergone 
modification  by  Roman  and  local  influences,  could 
survive  the  heavy  test  of  Roman  Caesarism.  We 
can  now  be  certain  upon  this  point,  for  Pompeii 
displays  in  all  its  average  relations  the  joyous  con- 
ception of  Life  characteristic  of  the  Antique  —  to  use 
once  more  that  inaccurate  collective  term,  in  describ- 
ing Greek  and  non-Greek  civilisation  in  organic 
connection. 

Already  the  death-watch  was  ticking  in  the 
patched-up  walls  of  the  Roman  State  :  behind  the 
religious  Carnival  of  all  the  faiths  the  spectre  of 
the  Christian  Ash  Wednesday  arose.  Not  far 
from  Pompeii,  where  the  Temple  of  Apis  and 
Osiris  stood  in  Puteoli,  near  the  Serapeum  of 
Puzzuoli,  there  had  landed  the  great  Scribe  of 
Tarsus,  Paul  —  the  Loyola  of  primitive  Christianity, 
who  transformed  the  original  tidings  of  great  joy, 
newly  born  with  Christ,  proclaiming  Man  as  the 
child  of  God,  back  into  a  tyrannical  ordinance  of 
self-abnegation  —  a  Pretorian  of  religion.  At  Rome 
the  first  Christians  speedily  fell  victims  to  a  frenzied 
orgy  erf  persecution.  Another  hundred  years,  and 


POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY         79 

Pompeii  would  have  possessed  Churches  and 
Catacombs,  Bishops  and  Martyrs,  and  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  would  here  too  have  commenced  to 
depreciate  by  imitation  the  works  of  joyous  Pagan 
Art  ;  from  depreciation  would  have  passed  to 
disfigurement,  and  from  disfigurement  to  libel. 
But,  as  it  is,  Pompeii  offers  us  the  picture  of  an 
original  Civilisation,  untouched  by  Christianity; 
which,  however  many  worldly  imperfections  and 
human  defects  it  might  display,  was  nevertheless 
free  from  the  great  inward  reproach  that  is  the 
canker  of  our  own  age. 

Pompeii  calls  back  to  us  a  day  in  the  late  summer 
of  the  ingenuous  ancient  world.  When  she  vanished 
from  the  face  of  the  earth  that  ancient  world  yet 
lived,  and  the  humane  Emperor  Titus  held  sway 
therein.  But  the  mixture  of  civilisation  and  blood 
which  formed  the  atmosphere  of  the  Roman  Empire 
was  already  far  too  widely  diffused  to  admit  of  the 
maintenance  of  more  than  a  mere  phantom  of  the 
harmonious  life  of  old.  Precisely  fifty  years  later, 
with  the  days  of  Hadrian,  the  history  of  that  ancient 
world  drew  to  its  close.  Antinous  was  its  last  real 
Divinity,  and  that  less  by  Imperial  decree  than 
owing  to  the  melancholy  charm  of  his  youthful 
figure.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Theodosius  was  the 
first  ruler  to  close  the  temples,  but  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  almost  a  Christian.  How  melancholy  is  the 
expression  of  all  his  portraits  !  how  weary  is  his 
hair-splitting  self-introspection — ever  questioning, 
and  despairing  at  the  answers  !  The  Roman  Empire 
had  effectually  prepared  the  way  for  that  of  Jehovah  j 


go        POMPEII  AS  AN  ART  CITY 

blind  obedience  was  now  the  instinct  of  a  world 
from  which  individuality  had  been  eliminated. 

As  in  all  periods  of  transition,  the  ancient  spirit 
once  more  flared  up  passionately  in  revolt — this 
time  in  the  Bacchic  worship  of  the  hermaphrodite 
upon  the  Imperial  throne,  Heliogabalus,  of  whom 
only  lately  has  an  impartial  estimate  been  formed. 
Next,  Decius  saw  in  Christianity  a  foe  to  be  en- 
countered on  equal  terms,  and  Constantine  signed, 
together  with  his  decree  of  toleration,  the  abdication 
of  defeated  Paganism. 

Of  all  this  turmoil,  of  all  this  strife,  Pompeii  has 
naught  to  tell  us.  Within  her  shattered  walls  we 
see  neither  the  Christian  idea  distorted  into  carica- 
ture nor  Paganism  in  its  dotage.  Her  resurrec- 
tion reveals  the  calm  serenity  of  an  ingenuous 
and  a  beautiful  world.  A  ruin,  indeed — perhaps 
a  mere  torso  ! — but,  shattered  and  crumbling,  still  a 
work  of  the  highest  art — of  that  Art  which  is  Life. 


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